Beware of Facebook IQ Test Scam
A few of our lovely community have let us know about a scam which is currently doing the rounds on Facebook. In this case the scam is in the form of an IQ Test which then requests your mobile number in order to send you the results.
DO NOT give such quizzes your phone number. Once you give the number you have no control over what they will do with it. You might find your number is sold onto telemarketing lists or worse still, as seems to be the case with this particular scam, when you send the number you are actually agreeing to a renewal payment, a monthly payment for the app which will be charged to your phone bill.
This is known as cramming According to Wikipedia Cramming is a form of fraud in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber’s consent or disclosure. These may be disguised as a tax or some other common fee, and may be several dollars or even just a few cents. The crammer’s intent is that the subscriber will overlook and ultimately pay these small charges.
[ctt title=”ALWAYS read the fine print” tweet=”ALWAYS read the fine print” coverup=”Ib_wj”]
It is important to read the fine print whenever you are giving away information such as your address, phone number or credit card details.
If you want to test your IQ, a few questions on a Quiz is unlikely to be enough. Let’s get smarter than the scammers.
A couple of years ago the Mary Sue site, wrote a post about such Quizzes and that we should understand they are the equivalent of one of those “what Disney Character are you?” type of quiz that regularly goes around. You can read her verdict here. It’s important to understand they are just a bit of fun, but for that reason our trust levels actually seem to be higher than if they were legitimately selling a product to measure IQ. Go figure, human nature is interesting isn’t it?
Recently there have been many posts about the types of information we give away in quizzes. Mark Wilson wrote one that gained quite a lot of traction, and although it’s not in depth, it does provide some insight into the way privacy statements are worded on quiz sites such as Meaww. His report can be found here.
We also wrote on our facebook page recently about scams and in particular that many facebook games ask to connect to your profile, but they ask for a more access than is required. Often they ask for access to your friends list and other details such as education etc. In particular be wary of those quizzes asking who your best friends are or who you should holiday with, in order to work they get access to all your data, so you haven’t just compromised your own privacy, but that of your friends as well.
These kinds of scams have been going around for many years. If you are not sure if something is a scam we are always happy to review for you.
SO remember: Don’t give away your phone number to Quizzes or you might end up with a nasty surprise in your next bill, and be wary of any quiz or game linking to facebook that asks for more than access to your profile to post your result, they are gleaning alot more information that you might like, and perhaps that of your friends.
