Free Argos gift card for Christmas? It’s a Facebook scam | Naked Security

by Graham Cluley on October 21, 2011 | Comments (4)

Filed Under: Social networks, Spam

Yet another scam is spreading rapidly on Facebook, this time claiming to offer a free £500 Argos gift card to British shoppers.

Free £500 Argos gift cards for Christmas
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As it's coming up to Christmas we have decided to give away 250 £500 Argos gift cards.

The scam follows the highly prevalent ASDA gift voucher scam that has been spreading in recent hours on Facebook, and is probably masterminded by the same group of fraudsters - seeing as the modus operandi appears to be identical.

Facebook users are tricked into sharing the link with their online friends, in the belief that they will win a prize. Of course, the more that the link is shared the more traffic is driven to a website of the scammers' own choosing - and they earn commission every time they trick users into filling in an online form requesting personal information.

Tens of thousands of users have already been duped - proving just how easy it is to be conned into sharing "special offer" links.

Of course, Argos has nothing at all to do with the scheme - but it's their brand name which is being besmirched.

If you were fooled into participating in this scam remove the message from your newsfeed, so you are no longer spreading it with your online chums.

Make sure that you keep informed about the latest scams spreading fast across Facebook and other internet attacks. Join the Sophos page on Facebook, where over 140,000 people regularly share information on threats and discuss the latest security news.

via nakedsecurity.sophos.com