Phishing Scam – Fake Facebook ‘Copyright Violations’ Message
The original site is no longer online; links go to the Internet Archive copy.
The claim
Message purporting to be from the Facebook Support Team claims that there are copyright violations on your Facebook Page and you are therefore required to click a link to verify the Page.
We Received reports that you’re making copyright violations on your Facebook page. Please review your posts and become more careful about your posts.
If you think this is a mistake, please verify your page on the link below. This would indicate that your page does not have a violation in terms of use. We will immediately review your page appeal.
[Link removed]
Note : If within 48 hours, you have not verified your page on our link, then you have ignored our notifications and your page will be suspended.
Sincerely,
Facebook Support Team
What the fact-checkers found
The message is not from Facebook. It is a phishing scam designed to trick you into giving your Facebook login details to criminals. If you receive this message, do not click any links that it contains.
According to this message, which arrives via Facebook’s private messaging system and purports to be from the Facebook Support Team, you have been ‘making copyright violations on your Facebook page’.
The message instructs you to click a link to verify your page. It warns that, if you do not verify within 48 hours, your Page will be suspended.
However, the message is the work of scammers who have hijacked a Facebook account and used it to launch the scam. The message is certainly not from Facebook support and the copyright violations claim is just a ruse to trick you into clicking the link.
If you do click the ‘verification’ link, you will be taken to a Facebook app page that hosts a bogus form (see screenshot below). The form asks you to supply your Facebook login information as well as your email and phone number. After you submit the requested information, you may then receive a message claiming that you have successfully verified your Page.
Meanwhile, the criminals who created the scam can collect the submitted details and use them to hijack your Facebook account. Once they have gained access, they can lock you out, change the account to suit their needs, and then use it to launch further scam attacks. They will likely use your compromised account to send out a new round of the ‘copyright violation’ scam messages to users on your friends list.
Because the messages come from Facebook’s own messaging service – via hijacked accounts – users are more likely to fall for the scam.
This is just one among many similar phishing campaigns that have targeted Facebook users in recent years. If you receive one of these messages, do not click any links that it contains.
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