Beware Of Facebook / Farmville Advertiser Scams

A not-so-secret fact about the games that Facebook users play (including Farmville) is that many of the offers that allow a player to get in-game special points are actually scams... scams that are knowingly abetted by the otherwise-honorable game developers themselves.

In Farmville, for instance, you earn "coins" by playing the game. However, certain objects in the game are only obtainable by spending "Farmville Cash", which (more or less) is only obtainable by getting out your credit card and spending some real money...

Or: You can participate in various marketing gimmicks to earn Farmville Cash. You can take surveys, get trial memberships in various services, or some other outside-the-game undertaking with a third party business. (These third party businesses pay the game developers who referred these potential and actual customers real money... millions and millions of dollars.)

Many of these are scams. One scam requires you to provide your mobile phone number before you can get your Farmville Cash, which results in a $10 per month charge to your phone bill forever and ever. Another scam sends you a free CD-ROM, but unless you return it within so many days (read the fine print), you are billed $190.

The fact is, as this article states, Facebook and these gaming companies are actually built on these scams. Read here, as the owner of Zynga games, which developed Farmville, crows about how much money his company made off of scammed customers.

Fortunately, as this practice is quickly becoming a major issue, these scams are being pulled from Facebook, but that does not mean that they are gone forever. Be careful when you sign up for these online "lead generating" gimmicks. You could get burned.

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UPDATE:

Now, in a proper way to engage in the marketing of one's product, Tony of Newsy.com contacted me via e-mail to plug a news video his company had made about this very subject, and requested I embed it in this post. By all means.