It’s the golden rule of the internet – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There’s currently a JB Hi-Fi scam doing the rounds on Facebook promising a free $200 gift card to the first 25,000 attendants of a special JB Hi-Fi event. The only thing you’re going to win by joining the event is compromised privacy and online security.
At the time of writing, more than 43,000 people have registered as attending the event, with over a million more “invited”.
Gizmodo spoke to JB Hi-Fi CEO Terry Smart who told us that the company discovered the scam early Friday, and took immediate steps to dissuade people from taking part, posting messages on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as their home page:
“The ‘Free JB Hi-Fi Gift Card’ offer being shared on Facebook is a hoax. Please be aware of this scam, DO NOT ‘like’ or ‘share’ on Facebook or enter any personal details. For more information please visit scamwatch.gov.au”
If you take a laissez-faire attitude to your privacy and clicked on the event, you’ll probably need to resecure your Facebook account, before the scammers can harvest too much information. Scamwatch has a couple of links on how to do that, as well as some good ideas to keep in mind the next time you think a major corporation is going to give you lots of stuff for nothing on social networks…
[Scamwatch]
[Thanks Chris!]
Drew
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:04 PMThere is also one for Coles and Dick Smith
lolwut
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:12 PMare they still following this format?
seen it even when the first generation ipad just been released
and yet…people still fall for it…
my golden rule is, if it’s not on the official website, 99% it’s a dodgy promise
cayal
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:52 PMI even put on my facebook that it is clearly fake.
10 minutes later, someone has the link up.
Johnd
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 12:54 PMSome people never learn. The lure of free money is just too great for some people.
Sicarius123
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:00 PMI’ve seen so many of these come up in my feed.
Told people to dissallow it access to their facebook and change their password to be safe.
InformedGamer
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:10 PMOh REALLY?!
Shucks!
Peter
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:31 PMAll the dodgy sites had the same Whois info for some guy in the US. So tacky.
Pariah
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:35 PMHow stupid can people get?
Ozoneocean
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:54 PMWhy in hell does Facebook give anyone that sort of access to your info anyway?
I use very, very few services or connected account on FB because most of them ask for ridiculous permissions and liberties that they shouldn’t. I also share no private info with FB (not even date of birth), the info I do share is stuff I would share openly anyway.
I Just use it as another way to stay in touch with geographically diverse friends etc.
All they need to do is not allow third parties any access to private user info… It’s pretty simple and it was close most of these holes. They’re big and profitable enough now they they don’t have to worry about losing funds from their scammy data-mining partners.
Ozoneocean
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:57 PMGawd I wish there was a way to edit these posts to fix grammar and spelling mistakes.
WTF
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 2:17 PMProof read before submission.
Richard
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 11:38 PMThere is legitimate uses to having some of this data though that may be of convenience to many people. HTC Sense or other Android phones linking to contacts for example is one which in turn enabled updates or extra communication channels with those people. To some that is requesting too much, to others its a killer feature of their phone.
Not that I personally like to have too many services connected either, but there are ones that people will find handy. Unfortunately it is too much to hope that people will read what they are getting themselves into, and by the time the screen saying what access the app will have is shown users have already made their mind up that they want the service anyway and any data sharing is likely a minor inconvenience.
Nath
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 1:58 PMI signed up for one of the probably fake iPad/iPhone freebie comps. However, before you judge me:-
I had some spare time so I went to the promoting website, checked their T&Cs. I found a registered business name in Melbourne. I checked a business registry which confirmed a Melbourne address and number. I then signed up with a trash email account, to avoid spam. Now I’m waiting to see if they do actually run the competition or if it is truly a hoax.
My point, I did some checking, not sure if it’s true or not, but I’m not at any risk either way.
Joshua
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 2:00 PMI saw this on my facebook too. I don’t know how people can be so stupid. People need to take a step back and think “Why would JB hand out free vouchers like this?”
Christian
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 2:41 PMhahaha losers
Chris
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 3:30 PMIt was obvious. There was a counter that always started at the same value and ran down., do a refresh and it was back to the original number
Cranny
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 3:38 PMI”m gonna sign up, I think jb hifi are just stingy and want to revoke the deal. Looks legit enough too me.
Nath
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 3:50 PM+1
I loled
Steve
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 4:05 PMDoesnt surprise me with the amount of air heads that use FB and blindly throw their details away.
Fitzy
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 4:37 PMI’m still waiting for the Nigerian Prince to send me the money he promised me 2 months ago! It only costed me $2000 to set up the wire transfer!! And he will send through $500 000! Bargain!! My good deed will be repaid eventually!
:D
Loz
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 4:43 PMIt’s facebook. It’s not like our bank details are linked to it.
Richard
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 11:46 PMWell for many their name, address, email, phone number, place of birth, occupation etc are all there for the taking which probably means getting access to bank details or at least utilities or something may not be all that difficult.
Jon
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 5:48 PMI heard my father mention he received a similar JBHF scam, except via email and promising $500. Anyone else heard anything about such an email approach, or would’ve it just been connected?
Jack
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 9:27 PMIf you still need to be told this kind of shit you shouldn’t be on the internet
Sowhatmeh
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 5:41 AM+1
I would understand if old folks got sucked into it, but the kind of friends in my facebook who keep reposting this crap is the “supposedly” internet savvy generations….sad sad day
Andy
Monday, December 12, 2011 at 9:42 PMive decided that half my friends have rather large tumors that make them slightly lacking in the power of reasoning and resulting in the been classified as mildly retarded.
Deb
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 2:42 PMHaha yeah… thankfully only about two people I know have those retardation tumors lol
Keelback
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 12:00 AMI have relatives that get sucked in by these schemes so what does that say about my genes? Scary!
TSH
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 2:21 PM$200 x 300,000 = $60,000,000.
Somehow I don’t think JB (or any other company) is going to just write that off on a niche marketing experiment.
big bitch
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 2:33 PMSomeone help with this list.
Things stupid people have fallen for this year:
1. JB HIFI scam on Facebook – check.
2. Coles $500 voucher (click Like and comment “Thank You” – check.
3. Indian guy rings up and tells you your computer is broken and proceeds to f$#k up your computer – check.
4. Paypal scam via link in email to change details – check.
5.
6.
7.