The world is mourning the death of Steve Jobs, founder and former CEO of Apple, and scammers are right there to take advantage of the bad news.
As always, the death of celebrity figures brings scammers out of the woodwork. Within hours of Jobs’ death, scammers started taking advantage of Facebook users.
One scam stated: “In memory of Steve, a company is giving out 50 ipads tonight. R.I.P. Steve Jobs” and is followed by a link. There are no free iPads being given out. The link took users instead to a page to complete online surveys. The provider of the website has since shut it down. Unfortunately, thousands of victims clicked on it before then.
This could be just the beginning of scams that will try to make money off of Jobs’ death. Better Business Bureau (BBB) warns to stay away from anything that looks questionable or sounds too-good-to-be-true. Be sure to limit your link-clicking to reputable websites that don’t claim they will give you something for free. Delete any emails that may seem too-good-to-be true.
The scammers’ goal is to drive more traffic to certain websites. Scammers gain by earning a commission for every survey completed, every product purchased, or every account compromised. Scammers also use bogus links to spread malware and obtain personal information.
If you see something questionable on Facebook, contact Facebook Security, http://www.facebook.com/security. Report scams that use the Internet or email to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a law enforcement task force, at www.ic3.gov.
Don’t get hooked by a scam. Learn about scams and report scams to the BBB Scam Source at http://www.bbb.org/us/scam-source/.
