A warning has been issued to customers of all major banks regarding the surge in reported incidents linked to the ‘Facebk’ scam.
Eyewitness News reports that the scam appears to be a global syndicate. It pays for Facebook adverts using stolen credit cards. Standard Bank, Nedbank and ABSA have been inundated with complaints from customers who have lost thousands of rands.
WHAT IS THE ‘FACEBK’ SCAM?
The ‘Facebk’ scam is when fraudsters create fake adverts on Facebook. They lure unsuspecting individuals to click on them and make purchases. However, some who don’t use this social media platform have also become victims.
Sowetan LIVE reported on 3 December 2024 that Standard Bank attributed the fraud to card-not-present (CNP) transactions. Ross Linstrom, the bank’s spokesperson said the CNP channels are exploited by fraudsters. They do this “to perpetuate schemes involving false advertising.” He further explained:
“They make fake offers, or phishing scams designed to steal personal and financial information. These ads can appear very legitimate, making it difficult for consumers and even advertising platforms to detect the fraud until it’s too late.”
FINANCIAL JOURNALIST ALSO BECOMES VICTIM TO ‘FACEBK’ SCAM
Award-winning financial journalist Maya Fisher-French is one of the recent victims of this fraud. Eyewitness News reported on 4 December 2024 that her joint household account was cleaned out. Fisher-French was reported as saying:
“These criminal syndicates post adverts on Facebook and they get customers to click on it to take them to a fake website. The customer thinks they’re making purchases, input their credit card details and they don’t get the goods and their credit card details are now compromised.
“Criminal syndicates that are putting up these adverts need to pay Facebook for these fake adverts, and they are not going to use their money. So they go out and they actually purchase credit card details [from] a dark web.”
MOST VICTIMS DON’T HAVE CARDS LINKED TO FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
According to MyBroadband, most of the victims of the ‘Facebk’ scam don’t have any cards linked to Facebook accounts. The publication was approached by clients from Standard Bank and ABSA. These bank customers said they had lost large amounts of money.
One of the complainants said they had up to 19 transactions go off against their account. Other transactions from ABSA and Capitec were successfully blocked. Capitec said it’s always monitoring transactions linked to the ‘Facebk’ scam.
HAVE YOU BEEN A VICTIM OF THE ‘FACEBK’ SCAM?
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