iPad Facebook scam automatically signs up victims for $10-a-week premium cell phone service
It was bound to happen: every new Apple product announcement inevitably becomes the lure for some unscrupulous scumbucket’s latest scam, and the iPad certainly wasn’t going to be any different. But the latest online scam to prominently feature an Apple product seems a bit more dastardly than most. According to security firm Sophos, a new iPad scam has hit Facebook, and far from giving you a free iPad, it could cost you a pretty penny.
The scam starts innocently enough: you are directed to a Facebook page which reads “iPad Researchers Wanted — Want to beta test Apple’s latest product?” The page then goes on to encourage you to become a fan and to recruit your friends, claiming propagation of the scam will increase your chances of being accepted into the beta.
But here’s the insidious part: go to the page brings up a pop-up window, claiming to be a quiz that you need to fill out to be eligible for the beta… and the quiz asks for your permission to get your date of birth and cellphone number from Facebook.
“That’s where the scam happens,” says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. The hackers who created this page are trying to sign you up for a premium rate cellphone service, that will charge you something like $10 a week until you unsubscribe.”
The good news here is Sophos alerted Facebook, who quickly pulled the scam… but the bad news is, it’s doubtlessly going to pop right back up again.
DON'T MISS
Snow Leopard Downgrades Your Flash Plugins, Security Company Warns
The lesson here, of course, is if it’s too good to be true, it always is… and Apple’s never going to let a schmuck like you or me beta test its new products.
John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him ![Read "Why You’ll Probably Never Own A Mac With An ARM Processor [Feature]"](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/macbookairarm-300x250.jpg "Read \"Why You’ll Probably Never Own A Mac With An ARM Processor [Feature]\"")
![Read "Is This USB Vibrator The New iPod? [Interview]"](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/crave1-300x250.jpg "Read \"Is This USB Vibrator The New iPod? [Interview]\"")
