A Facebook scam is circulating on the social media platform involving Robbie Williams and a free cash giveaway.
Facebook users should be on the lookout for any suspicious pages claiming to be affiliated to the former Take That star, asking you to provide personal details.
The scam involves a supposedly live video, which is either an old video of Robbie Williams or a Robbie Williams lookalike, with a title promising a “free cash giveaway” for a certain number of fans.
What is the scam?
First the scammers ask users to share the post to eight to 10 groups on the social media platform, then users get a message telling them they’ve been selected as the winner.
From here, users are instructed to provide credit card details in order to receive their £5,000 prize. Generally, the messages claim that users have only a limited amount of time to claim their prize.
The accounts are generally labelled as some variation of ‘Robbie Williams Live Cash Giveaway’, and although several of the accounts have been taken down there are dozens of variations.
Robbie Williams’ official Facebook account shared a warning to fans last month as reports of the scam began to circulate.
‘Be safe’
Williams wrote: “There’s a scam going around at the moment, saying I’m giving away money on Facebook, from some kind of streaming profile. Do NOT give any credit card or bank details - it’s a scam, and it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
He also confirmed that the only official Robbie Williams social media accounts use the handle “@RobbieWilliams”.
He also urged fans to “be safe”.
While this scam seems to most commonly involve videos of Robbie Williams, there are reports of other variations using different celebrities, such as singer Ed Sheeran.
A page titled ‘My Live Ed’ posted a video in January claiming to be giving away £10,000 to 900 people.
As a rule, if celebrities do take part in live streamed cash or prize giveaways, it will always be on their official social media accounts, which are verified with a blue tick.
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