Girl killed herself on Halloween scam spreads quickly on Facebook

Filed Under: Facebook, Social networks, Spam

Scammers have put a new spin on an old Facebook scam, claiming that a girl killed herself on Halloween after her father posted a message on her wall.

Facebook users are sharing messages with their friends, claiming to link to the salacious content.

Halloween Facebook survey scam

Girl-Killed-Herself-on-Halloween-After-Dad-Posted-This-on-Her-Wall
[LINK]
This is unbelievable.. shocking..

The messages are currently spreading very quickly on Facebook, as - at the moment at least - Facebook's built-in security systems are not blocking them.

We've seen similar scams in the past, of course, including some which claimed that the girl killed herself on Christmas Eve rather than at Halloween.

Of course, the story is purely designed to lure you into clicking on the link. So what do you see if you do click on the link?

Halloween Facebook survey scam

You are taken to a third-party webpage where you are told that in order to view the shocking message left by the father on his late daughter's Facebook wall, you will have to "Share" and "Recommend" the link with your friends.

Woah!! Would you really share and recommend a link before you've actually found out what the content is?

Sadly, lots of Facebook users are so curious that they will do exactly that - helping the message spread for scammers.

And why do the scammers want the message to spread?

Because it drives traffic to online surveys like this, which earn the scammers affiliate commission:

Halloween Facebook survey scam

If you were fooled into participating in this scam remove the message from your newsfeed, and delete any messages you may have inadvertently shared with your friends. That way at least you are no longer spreading it with your online chums.

Make sure that you keep informed about the latest scams spreading fast across Facebook and other internet attacks. Join the Sophos page on Facebook, where over 140,000 people regularly share information on threats and discuss the latest security news.

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9 Responses to Girl killed herself on Halloween scam spreads quickly on Facebook

  1. Mark says:

    That is a picture of Megan Meyer who actually did commit suicide because of a Facebook post but the story has nothing to do with her fathers comments. A bizzare twist with a crazy neighbor. See here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Mei...

  2. Bev says:

    But we need to have compassion for stupid people...right? Thank God (insert yours) for Sophos!

  3. Katherine says:

    I'm glad I have AVG, it immediately flagged this up!

  4. Emerald says:

    As a suicide survivor, I find this totally tasteless and horrifying and I have alerted 1000s of survivors to deluge this company with emails to get it removed!

  5. shar says:

    No u don't post something like this on fb ever it's not something u joke around with especially if it was real I know it was 2 years ago but damn kids will get horrible nite mares about these kind of things!!

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About the author

Graham Cluley has worked in the computer security industry for more than 20 years, developing anti-virus software and doing quite a lot of talking about internet threats. He's won awards for his blogging, but is proudest of the text adventure games he wrote when he was still wearing short trousers. You can learn more about those (the games, not the trousers) at grahamcluley.com. Send Graham an email, subscribe to his updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and App.net, and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.