New Facebook scam page offers Fiji holidays from Jetstar Airline
Fraudsters have set up a new Facebook page for users to visit and leave a message, luring them with the chance to win a two-week holiday to Fiji from Jetstar Airline. The winner of the draw will supposedly be announced on the social network.
Jetstar is a low-cost airline in Australia that offers both domestic and international flights to further afield, such as New Zealand and Asia, and has absolutely no involvement with the fake competition page.
To make the scam even more attractive than it already is, cybercriminals have casually added an additional lure designed to push users to follow the fraudulent link: $4,000/€3,500 cash will be given to winners to spend during the holidays.
The motivation behind all these efforts is to attract as many visitors to a website as possible and trick them into liking, commenting, and sharing the link with other users. Once the website becomes popular enough, the scammers will sell it to the highest bidder, along with all of the victims' details.
The scam is called “like-farming” because of its purpose. It has become increasingly common on the social network and can even be found outside of Facebook.
One method used by scammers is to create a website that is allegedly associated with a major market brand, in order to generate interest through similar tactics.
There is no immediate loss, but the risk still exists
There is an active black market for trading Facebook, according to Hoax-Slayer, and some pages can be sold for several thousand dollars.
The popularity of the page offers access to a large audience, which serves commercial companies, as well as cybercriminals, whose aim is to promote new scams such as online surveys.
In all cases, to enter the fake contest, all a visitor has to do is simply Like and comment. None of this costs anything, but a scam can backfire, as they could fall victim to a malware.
