Facebook scam targets Pinterest fans

A new ad campaign on Facebook is targeting users of social networking site Pinterest —with scammers running the show, a computer security firm warned this week.

 

BitDefender's "Malware City" blog said the ad promises to show interested parties how to “make money with Pinterest.”

 

"This is an element of novelty as scammers actually seem to be taking money out of their pockets to make sure that their scams hit it big," it said.

 

BitDefender said the paid advertising campaign can increase the efficiency of scams as the Facebook ad targeting mechanism allows you to “define your ideal audience by what they are interested in, using terms people have shared in their Facebook profiles (timelines)."

 

It said the embedded link in the ad takes users to a web page that features a survey they are supposed to take in exchange for a Visa gift card and an e-mail address submission form for possible subscribers.

 

While the “free gift card” method is reminiscent of a recent spam wave that hit the Pinterest platform, the bot-based money making mechanism advertised in the ad is very similar to the #followback scams on Twitter.

 

BitDefender said the Pinterest team indicated the spam and money-making mechanisms violate the platform’s acceptable use policy in two areas.

 

The first violation involves unsolicited advertising materials and use of the service for third parties’ benefit without Pinterest’s agreement.

 

Pinterest recently updated its policies to eliminate a few unclear matters regarding ownership of pinned content and more general copyright issues.

 

“As a growing service, Pinterest is not immune to challenges faced by sites across the web including spam and phishing. However, it is a tremendous priority for us to quickly address them. Our engineers are actively working to manage issues as they arise and are revisiting the nature of public feeds on the site to make it harder for fake or harmful content to get into them,” BitDefender quoted Erica Billups from The OutCast Agency, as speaking on behalf of Pinterest. — TJD, GMA News