A scam on Facebook that claims it is offering free Justin Bieber concert tickets is actually signing teenagers up for a premium rate, expensive mobile phone service.
There were messages on Facebook circulating that said, wow, Justin Bieber’s giving free concert tickets away!
Many fans of the teen pop star obviously are very anxious to get their hands on Justin Bieber concert tickets and be more than willing to click the link.
What they will discover however is that tricksters are scamming then through the lure of getting free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert to trick them into give a rogue application permission to post updates on their Facebook status and well. The messages state the the user on Facebook just won 4 free Justin Bieber show tickets. Of course they haven’t. The headline reads “Justin Bieber Free Concert Ticket Giveaway! Justin Bieber World Tour.”
The messages of course are designed to entrap even more people into their snare, spreading the scam in viral fashion.
Why are the scammers wanting to spread this message? They might want to use the rogue application for posting more scams, including perhaps even malicious links sometime in the future. However the danger right now is in your search for free Bieber tickets you are agreeing to enter the number from your mobile phone which signs you up for a service with a high premium.
Overall, this seems to be a dirty trick designed to con young kids out of their money.
When you see messages like this you need to think twice. Even when your friends are apparently sharing them and particularly when you are requested to install any application that provides access to your profile on Facebook.
This isn’t the first time Facebook cyber criminals have exploited the popularity of Justin Bieber. In the past there have been claims of Bieber being caught being naughty while on the web cam, or that he has been caught flirting, or his cellphone number is posted on the net, or pictures of while with Cheryl Cole that are used as bait.
Bieber is probably the most likely celebrity that the Facebook scammers currently use in their schemes.
If you have a Facebook account and are wanting to learn more in regards to security threats from social networks and other places on the web, you can join Sophos’ Facebook change. This could end up being the best decision you’ve ever made in term of social networks.
Facebook and bit.ly have been informed about this latest Facebook scam. Hopefully the rogue application and offending links will soon be shut down. Unfortunately recent history has proven it doesn’t take the scammers long to set new pages up designed to trick the unaware.