HOW TO RECOGNIZE A SCAM PAGE

We know a lot of you have Pages on your LIKES list that are not for the official game or celebrity. The Pages for games may have been made by friends who wanted to organize their friends list better and thought making a Facebook Page was the answer.  The Pages for celebrities may have been made by anyone who wanted to use that celebrity's name to cash in on an offer they are making on the Page or some other illegal activity.

Tyler Perry didn't even know this Page existed until he was alerted by Facebook
that his name was being used in a Scam.

You might have LIKES on your list that you never personally LIKED but they ended up on there anyway. 

Do you know how they got there?  Usually it is because the Page's creator is someone on your friends list and when they made the Page, they were given the option to add all of their friends as LIKES to boost the Page popularity on Facebook.  

Many novice Page makers don't know that there is an option to uncheck a box so all their friends don't show as LIKES. However, if they uncheck the box, then the popularity, visitors, and LIKES they expected to see just won't happen. 

It is to the benefit of every new Page owner to leave that box unchecked so they can get high numbers of LIKES on their new Page.  Everyone likes to see a large number of followers and LIKES on their posts, and Page owners are no different.

SO WHAT IS A SCAM PAGE? 

Scam Pages are websites (both on and off Facebook) that have not been verified as belonging to the company they are trying to imitate.  

On Facebook, they have to pass an identity check to prove they are who they say they are and that they have some affiliation with the developer of the game or celebrity or cause that is the subject of their Page.

These Pages will not have Facebook's official blue check mark next to their Page name.   To get the blue check mark, the Page owner/creator must submit documents saying they work for or actually are the game developer.  When Facebook is satisfied they are telling the truth, they verify their Page as the real deal and place a little blue check mark next to the Page's name as you see in the following picture.

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Now that you know how to recognize legitimate game apps that are verified with the blue check mark, what does that mean for all those other game and fan Pages?


Good Rule of Thumb:

If the Page is offering something to you for free, or if they copy paste their posts directly from an App Page, they are Scams.  



There is only ONE Page for the developer and they don't take too kindly, nor are they flattered when other Pages imitate them, steal their traffic and promise large amounts of game currency to their Like-rs and Followers.





Take a minute right now and go through your LIKES list.  All those Facebook Pages that you LIKED for games, household products, food products, charities, etc, if they have no Blue check mark, go UNLIKE them. They are not the real deal and you are supporting a Scammer by giving them your LIKE. You are fueling more traffic to the Page by leaving your LIKE in place.


Most Pages for household products, charities, causes and food products are not made by the real company or a developer acting on the company's behalf.  They are made by people who want to take a high profile product or item and draw attention to a Page they made so they can garner a little bit of glory. Many use the Page as a introduction to another Page or website.  In this case, there is a website behind a website. You start by watching a video or reading testimonials on one webpage and when you click to read more, another webpage appears - usually selling something or asking for your personal information to put you on a mailing list or to verify your identity.

Examples of non-verified Pages that were added to your LIKES because you were on the Page owner's friends list. Some of these are also Pages you may have LIKED, thinking they were the Official Page for that topic. Often Page creators will make a Page using a famous person's name or picture and try to pass their Page (or themselves) off as the celebrity. 

SAGE WISDOM:

Scam Pages are a HUGE deterrent against your friend requests being accepted and against your being approved to join legitimate game groups.  


The only way to fix this is to go to your LIKES list and click to UNLIKE anything you didn't personally Like on your own. 



While you are there, if your LIKES list is long or if you find things you don't care about any more, either hide some of them to ONLY ME or UNLIKE the ones that are no longer of interest to you which will remove them from your list. 



Thanks for reading.