New Facebook scam could be costing victims $5 a week reports PCWorld, spread by the “Share” feature. The malware is similar to a worm that plagued Facebook in May with a rigged “Like” button that would run a script when it was clicked. What happens is that a Facebook user sees an interesting link and upon clicking it they see a page claiming to need human verification through a 3-step process. On the second step they are asked to click a “Next” button where the scam really starts; as it turns out it isn’t a real “Next” button,
the “Next” button doesn’t actually have any functionality and is just a dummy. But hidden underneath the “Next” button is a functional “Share” button. So while it looks like you are just clicking on “Next” to get to the final step, what you are actually doing is posting that page to your profile wall using the Share function.
Its noted that users running Firefox with the No Script add-on will see it blocking the scam script. After the content is shared on their page by clicking the “Next” button, the user is prompted in the third step to fill out a survey for the scammers. The survey gathers personal information including a cell phone number, then adds “The Awesome Test” along with an extra $5/week to the victim’s cell phone bill without them knowing unless they read the fine print.
Facebook’s response to the scam is to remove all fan pages relating to it. For people that may have been affected, first they should make sure any links posted to their wall have been removed and manually remove any stray ones. Second, if they filled out the survey they should contact their cell phone company to check for extra charges.
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