Fake News Scam Sites Advertising On Real News Sites

Virtual_Raider writes "Wired is running a story about a new twist in the never-ending quest to prove P. T. Barnum's adage. Old: Scammers are creating fake news sites that look almost like the real thing. New: They are advertising on real news sites, making it difficult for unwary readers to catch on they are being duped with fake coverage of get-rich-quick scams. Among those running the scam 'news' ads are the Huffington Post and Salon. From the article: 'The story has art, it has a sidebar, there's weather, supposed reader comments — even ads. Steadman is described as "a mother from San Francisco" — at least, when I read the article. Thanks to cutting-edge reporting techniques perfected by News 5, she will automatically move to the geolocation of your internet IP address when you read it. Look, she lives right in your neighborhood!'" Forbes also wrote about the scam news sites a couple of weeks back.

Comments

Re:ABC Should Crack Down

[Deekin_Scalesinger]

I looked into the google money tree scam a few weeks ago after my girlfriend got a cellphone text message from a suspicious (and non requested) source trying to get her to sign up for it. She is not tech savvy, but she knows when something smells fishy. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people who are not tech or street savvy have gotten pulled into this scam, being charged 80 dollars a month for freely available information and having a difficult (practically impossible) time canceling the service, let alone getting their money back.

The only out the shadow company has is in their fine print, as always - even that is obscured as some of the shell sites have a timer running on their T&C page - it redirects you back to the entry page shortly after you start top read the T&Cs. Of course the rates are listed at the bottom of the page. Using noscript will allow you to view them at your leisure, but how many average Americans are using noscript and researching this in the first place?

A shame really - just one more example of how P.T Barnum was right, but also more disgusting is how some folks are willing to dup others out of their cash.