Here’s an odd collection of websites promising lots of free Facebook goodies, including “Free Texas Holdem Poker Chips” – one million chips, to be exact.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, all we’re left with is proof positive that too many people will click anything put in front of them – no matter how silly the initial promise.
Here’s the website, located at starringmovie(dot)net/secretchips(dot)html:
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Underneath the blurb, we can see how many people have been jumping through hoops to obtain their free chips:
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Facebook users are asked to paste a spam message “5 times anywhere on Facebook”. The spam reads “Omg it’s real, they just send me 1M chips for free – check it out [url removed] – you got nothing to lose”.
I particularly like the recommendation to plaster it all over the official Texas HoldEm page. “You got nothing to lose”? You have nothing to gain, either. 6,833 Facebook users have hit the “Like” button, and the two “Share” buttons are being put through their paces too with 4,165 users sharing the free chips page and 1,128 users sharing starringmovie(dot)net, which is a bunch of ripped movies streamed from various sources.
Once you’ve promoted both portals, they dangle a not-very-impressive splash page in front of you, finishing off with some underwhelming text.
Here’s the splash:
And here’s the text:
Yes, they want you to send them your Facebook Username and associated EMail address, which smacks of targeted marketing and lists you probably don’t want to be on.
For anyone holding onto the vague hope of chips arriving in your mailbox sometime soon, here is your wake up call. Please don’t get suckered into these kinds of deals – the only person that benefits from all the gruntwork you put in is the site owner themselves.
As a matter of fact, the above message is hosted elsewhere, at elite-slots(dot)com/chips(dot)html. That domain also has an “offer” for another Facebook application, located at elite-slots(dot)com/treasure(dot)html.
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How many people shared this one?
Yes, that does say 16,000.
Worse, after clicking through to get my hands on the “reward”, I was dumped at another URL, shikoshlir(dot)com/facebook.
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Anyone entering their login information will be taken to a .php page hosted at the same site – we reported all of the above sites to Facebook, and all of them including the Login page have quickly been suspended and taken offline. If you or your friends have encountered Facebook logins related free prize websites, you may want to change your login details to be on the safe side.
I doubt we’ve seen the last of this one…
Christopher Boyd