Greg's Corner

The Facebook lottery is a lie

Back in the early days of the internet, there was an infamous hoax that said if you forward an email from Microsoft founder Bill Gates you’ll get cash for each time the email is forwarded. That hoax was largely harmless and mostly resulted in annoyance and some susceptible people wondering where their money was. Now there’s another impersonation hoax that’s causing its victims to lose thousands of dollars apiece. It’s colloquially known as the Facebook lottery scam.

The way the scam works is that Facebook users will receive texts or Facebook messages claiming to be from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg or COO Sheryl Sandberg. These messages will say that the user has won a Facebook lottery that only a small number of people have ever won. They’ll claim the prize is anywhere from $500,000 to $500,000,000, but as you might expect, there’s a catch. In order to claim the alleged winnings you’ll need to either wire a processing fee, or give the processing fee in gift cards.

This is not a new scam with some reports stating that it’s been around since 2011, however, it seems to have really ramped up in the past month with stories about it being reported all over the country, most notably in the New York Times. While each story has some differences, they all have the same result, an elderly person being scammed out of large sums of money.

While some may easily spot this scam before they fall victim, there are still others who are not as educated in these matters. If you know someone who thinks the Facebook lottery is real show them this blog post and the other stories where people have fallen victim to the scam. Reason with them that if Facebook was giving away money, which they don’t do, they wouldn’t need money for so-called processing fees. Also remind them that wiring money or sending gift cards to strangers is the sure sign of a scam.