Special Features

Internet messages that falsely claim that a celebrity has died have been around for many a long year. In earlier times, these messages tended to be just silly poor-taste hoaxes that posed no real security threat to recipients. But, alas, the modern incarnations of these fake death messages tend to be considerably more sinister.

Post circulating on Facebook asks users to participate in a “secret wine bottle exchange” in which participants can supposedly send just one bottle of wine and receive up to 36 bottles in return.

In homage to Halloween, we’ve resurrected five of our spookiest hoaxes for your reading pleasure!

Despite thorough debunking, these silly hoaxes somehow manage to fool a great many Facebook users each and every time they reappear. Which may leave the rest of us face palming in frustration.

Internet giant Yahoo has now officially confirmed that at least 500 million accounts were compromised in a massive 2014 security breach.

Facebook is awash with bogus competition pages. You know, the ones that promise amazing prizes such as store vouchers, holidays, luxury vehicles, ocean cruises, free air travel, and even houses in exchange for liking, sharing, commenting, and filling in surveys. And, despite many warnings about such scams, very large numbers of Facebook users still fall for them every day.

Every time I publish an article about a scam attempt, there are at least a few comments suggesting that if people are dumb enough to fall for such a trick, they DESERVE to be scammed. But, I think there are good reasons why people should rethink this ‘deserve to be scammed’ attitude.

Of course, the majority of Internet users will know immediately that the girl in this picture just has a piece of ham…

It is a sad fact of life that online scammers are always quick to use events such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters…