Facebook Scam Initiates Slew of Expensive Text Message Charges

Recently while networking on Facebook; I received notification that a friend of mine had sent me an IQ Test challenge. Now, I am always up for some friendly completion with my buddies; so I decided to accept. What harm could there be in that?

The quiz began innocently enough through the 1^st two pages of decidedly easy questions (What is the capital of California for example). Then, I was suddenly being asked for my mobile phone number.  Of course I was skeptical; so I entered 999-999-9999. I then proceeded to two more pages of ‘quiz’. I noticed that the URL changed several times; but this time they were asking for personal information such as what high school I went to and the year I graduated. This may seem benign; but as Rachel’s posts have mentioned, this is a common security question that banks and other secure sites use to confirm the identity of the user.

At this point, I had enough information to begin researching this threat and decided to close the page. However, the ordeal wasn’t over yet-these scammers really wanted me to stay and complete the ‘quiz’. The first time I attempted to close the window, I received an error message saying “Warning: Friends from Oregon think you’re dumb” that prompted me to continue. When I closed that page, I was rerouted to a site which my malware/virus filters immediately flagged as a ‘red’ site (possibly containing malware or spyware). Fortunately for me, I was able to exit this program without further incident.

Further research uncovered the true intent of this scam: if I had been unwitting enough to enter my actual mobile number, I would have agreed to receive text messages at upwards of $2 a text. From what I have read, it takes a very long time to get your phone company to reverse this action and is almost impossible to unsubscribe from the original application. Somewhere in the ‘quiz’, the scammers claim that a user agrees to these text charges and therefore the scammer has a right to send them. I certainly didn’t see any fine print of this nature at all.

Remember, Facebook and other social networking sites are a great way to connect with others; but they’re also a great way for scammers to connect with you. Beware of any quiz, survey or test that asks for personal information like your cell phone number. If it claims to be an ‘invitation’ from a friend; ask them if they really did send it to you (in my case, my friend had never done so). In fact, I would recommend declining invitations to quizzes like this altogether, and if that isn’t possible, to exercise caution and keep your malware blockers and virus filters up to date.