A phishing scam sent via Face Book by a person named Frederick Wallace Smith included Kaniva Tonga News Face Book account as one of his potential target.
The message said, “well this is from the desk of WORLD INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY AGENCY COMPANY, My Name is FREDERICK WILLIAMS SMITH. We remember your name on our list, doing the FACE BOOK RANDOMLY drawn from a collation of frequent FACE BOOK users from all over the world. Am here to inform you about Money which the WORLD INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY AGENCY COMPANY is giving to all people and i will like to know if u haven’t got the Money Yet the sum of $100,000.00 dollars, So your Cash can be deliver to you at home
It was not clear when Smith became friend with Kaniva Tonga News on Face Book but just last week when the editor, one of the admins of the account, logged in and not long his message board popped up where Smith chatted him with the message.
The editor immediately realised that this was a hoax and reported Smith to Face Book where he was advised of how to block and send them the message from Smith.
Smith was eventually blocked from Kaniva’s list of friends and his message was shared with friends on face book alerting them that this was a phishing scam.
Frederick Wallace Smith is obviously a fake name and he did not know that he was hoaxing an editor from a news agency who is well aware of this type of hoax.
By the content of the message, saying that the World International Lottery Agency Company is giving money to all people is a giveaway that this is a phishing scam and the hoaxer was just trying to strike up a conversation between him and the receiver where he would then apparently ask for the receiver’s ID or bank account number.
It should be taken into account that no offer of such large amount of money from a world known organisation be informed through social media network and by logic no lottery could give such amount of money to all people.
Some people on Face Book thanked Kaniva Tonga for its alert and some said they were sent with the same message.
One person admitted that he had fallen into this phishing scam but did not reveal how he was got caught up.
