Fake Tesco/Asda voucher scammers on Facebook hit with large fines

Two firms have been fined a total of £450,000 (approximately US $720,000) for running a series of scams on Facebook.

The scams, which claimed to offer free vouchers and supermarket gift cards for the likes of Tesco and Asda, resulted in members of the public signing-up for expensive premium-rate phone services.

Australian firm mBill Pty and Amazecell Limited, based in Israel, were judged by PhonepayPlus – the regulatory body for all premium rate phone-paid services in the United Kingdom – to have run deliberately misleading promotions on Facebook.

The problem got so bad that Tesco warned its customers not to click on the offending links…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.