Earlier this year we highlighted a barrage of posts by fake pages and profiles targeting people interested in a popular artisan Christmas market in Malta. Scammers really never do take a holiday, and this particular tactic seems to be a growing trend.
Another Facebook Event created by Malta Artisan Markets, this time advertising its Carnival-themed market of 9th February 2025, similarly drew scammers to the scene.
The (genuine) Facebook Event targeted by scammers.
As with the scam(s) targeting the Christmas market, fake pages were posting comments on the Event page to advertise ‘available vendor spots’, asking interested users to message them with their email address and ‘like my post’ (‘thanks you [sic]’). Presumably, users contacting them might have been asked to divulge other personal details or to click on a malicious URL that may have resulted in financial harm and/or their Facebook account being hacked.
Comments by fake pages posted in the Facebook Event.
The pages are easily identified as being fake. Besides their comments’ poor wording and grammar (and their identical message), the pages themselves had little to no likes and followers, and had not posted anything on their own feeds. One of them – simply named ‘Lisa’ – naively identified itself as a ‘health/beauty’ page, despite claiming to be the event organiser (‘thank you for participating in our event’).
The fake pages posing as event organisers.
It is worth noting the popularity of the targeted Facebook Event, as it says something about the scam’s potential reach. As mentioned, this particular Event – which, again, was advertising a real market – was created by Malta Artisan Markets to spread awareness about its Carnival market, which like its Christmas edition, was taking place at the much-loved 18th-century palace Palazzo Parisio in Naxxar. Given the crowds that these markets tend to attract, it was no surprise that this latest edition got around 1.5K users to press ‘interested’.
Back in January, we had predicted that more events would be targeted by scammers posing as event organisers. This is one of those times when we would have been happier to be proven wrong.
Fact Check, Society, Uncategorized
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Originally published here.
