IKEA Gift Card Scam Snares Facebook Users

On a single day last week, 40,000 Facebook users fell victim to an online scam promising $1,000 IKEA gift cards.

In March of 2010, a similar scam took in more than 70,00 victims. Perhaps things in Farmville are too expensive?

Are Facebook users more naive than the general population, or are they so used to over-sharing everything that it's impossible for them to discern fact from fiction?

The lofty goal of those perpetrating these frauds is two-fold: steal your personal information for later use in identity theft, and direct you toward sites that surreptitiously install malicious software on your computer that captures your keystrokes, steals  your information, or becomes part of a massive botnet used to launch spam blizzards or churn out malware itself.

It's really a matter of Psychology 101 - giving people an incentive to engage in risky behavior and using human nature to help them make terrible choices. Remember the story of the trojan horse?

Don't accept friend requests from people that you don't know well. Don't mindlessly click on offers and links that people send you. And remember this scam advice that's been floating around as long as there's been fraud: if it looks to be too good to be true, it probably is.

Via Network World