The callous posts started appearing almost immediately following the tragic death of the beloved comedian and actor, who took his life on August 11, 2014.
The message is designed to exploit the news of the actor's death. Indeed there is no video. The link leads to a bogus "BBC-looking" news page that tries to trick you into sharing the scam message and participating in a bevy of phony surveys. When you try to play the video, you will be told via a pop-up message that you must first share the page via Facebook.
After you share the page, you will be routed to another fake page that again appears to contain the video. But, when you again try to play the video, a second pop-up tells you that you must first participate in an online survey, supposedly to verify your age.
The bogus surveys will coerse you into providing personal information, or to sign up to very very expensive SMS text services. Any information you do share with these people will be used against you in the form of phone calls, and spam.
To add insult to injury, the scammers get commissions everytime you take a survey and, worse yet, some of the scam get you to download malware or those crappy "Toolbars" that won't go away.
If you come across a link on Facebook that claims to be a video message from Robin Williams - a final goodbye to his fans - please do not click it
Think before you click on things. If it sounds outlandish
or if it sounds like something that would be very enticing it could be too good to be true. It could definitely be a scam.
Remember:
- Be skeptical of links shared by friends
- Don’t click on a URL from a strange domain name
- Don’t share a Facebook link without knowing what it is first
#RobinWilliams #KoiHosting
