According to a Facebook Page that calls itself ‘Powerball 2016’ you can get a share in recent Powerball wins just by liking and sharing posts, liking the Page, and commenting ‘Done’ when you are finished. Posts on the page claim that John and Lisa Robinson, Randy Barnum, and several other winners of major Powerball jackpots are all giving away thousands of dollars to Facebook users who like and share as instructed. The posts feature photographs of these winners.
But, of course, the Page is a scam. It has no association whatsoever with Powerball and the lottery winners featured on the Page are certainly not giving their money to strangers in exchange for liking and sharing. The photographs of winners published on the Page are stolen from various news reports about the wins.
As with other like-farming scams, the fraudulent Page is designed simply to accumulate large numbers of Page likes as quickly as possible. And, by tricking people into sharing and commenting on their bogus posts, the scammers ensure that their material is seem by an ever increasing number of users.
Once a Facebook Page has accumulated a large number of likes, it can then be used to launch further fraud campaigns such as survey scams or advance fee lottery scams. Alternatively, the Page can be sold on the black market to other scammers who will repurpose it to fit their own nefarious goals.
Despite the seemingly obvious absurdity of the claims on the fake Page, many people are apparently taken in. The bogus posts on the page have been shared and liked many thousands of times along with countless ‘done’ comments posted by ever hopeful users. Sadly, a great many users participate in such schemes in the vain hope that they may be true. ‘Just in case’, is often their rather lame justification. But, by participating, they help to clutter our social media feeds with ever more useless garbage. And, often, by participating they can also compromise their privacy and security by divulging their personal information.
Some quick rules of thumb:
1: Any claim that a lottery winner is randomly giving away large portions of their winnings to total strangers via the Internet or email should be treated with immediate suspicion. While many lottery winners may indeed give money to charities or the less fortunate, it is very unlikely that they will simply distribute cash randomly to people they do not even know.
2: Any Facebook Page or post that claims that you can win large sums of cash or valuable prizes just by liking, and sharing or by participating in online surveys is quite likely to be fraudulent.
Note : Please like ourpage and will be winner.
Comment ‘Done’
Note : Please like ourpage and will be winner.
Comment ‘Done’
Last updated: January 20, 2016
First published: January 20, 2016
By Brett M. Christensen
About Hoax-Slayer
References
John And Lisa Give Back Scams
Facebook Like-Farming Scams
What is a Facebook Survey Scam?
Facebook Lottery Scams Still Claiming Victims
The Case Against ‘Just in Case’
Original Source : https://www.hoax-slayer.net/powerball-2016-like-farming-scam-facebook-page/