The $1,000,000 Facebook Scam

Fraud type: Lottery/Sweepstakes

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Details: Fraudsters claim that you have won $1M from Facebook, and provide corresponding “Assurance Letters” from both Facebook and the FBI to assure you of the legitimacy of the winnings. They provide forged documents claiming to be authentically signed from senior officials at both organizations. 

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Example images:

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Fraud signals:

1. False urgency - Scammers often try to create a false sense of urgency so that you feel you don’t have time to validate their legitimacy.some text
   • “Your chance of getting this winnings is slipping away due to delays…”
   • “Act fast about this…”
2. Incorrect or awkward grammar - Fraudulent attempts are frequently riddled with incorrect or poor usage of grammatical rules.some text
   • “...and monitoring every steps to get your winnings”
   • “your winning prize from our humble office”
   • “Act fast about this”
   • “The on going Facebook Promotional Program”
3. Factual inaccuracies - Incorrect information is a strong signal that there is a scam at work.some text
   • James Comey is no longer the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He left the agency in 2017.
   • There is no such “Facebook Promotional Program” that distributes cash prizes to its users.
4. Overt attempts to portray legitimacy
5. Large stamps signaling “guaranteed,” “original” and “approved” are rarely a feature of legitimate documentation

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What to do about it:

1. Do NOT try to unsubscribe to emails like this by clicking on links within the email.
2. If your email program offers a way to report spam (a button that says “Report Spam,” for example), use this button to both report the email and to have it deleted from your inbox.
3. If your email program does not offer a way to report spam, delete the email without clicking on any links.
4. If you are interested in helping to raise awareness of this scam, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

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Thanks for reading,

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Tony from Team FraudWatch

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P.S. If you find this article valuable, please share it to a friend or relative. We’re in this together.