Scams on the Internet and Facebook are rampant and unending. Especially now that Facebook has become something of a virtual watering hole where people, even those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy, gather and socialize. Some scams may snag only a few, but the more clever and crafty ones can dupe thousands. The plan that one troublemaker cooked up was simple but ingenious – and also a bit scary, if you think about the other things that could be done with such a strategy.

He (or she, for that matter) created a Facebook fan page for Cube Entertainment and claimed that it was the official fan page. He then created a poll, asking fans to vote on which country should be the next venue for the United Cube Festival, in which the bands BEAST, 4Minute and G.NA will perform. The options were Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore.

The voting lasted for several days, and fans were in a frenzy to get their friends to like the said page and to vote on the poll. Thousands joined the page, and the two particular countries which had a tug-of-war for the top spot were the Philippines and Malaysia. At first, Malaysia had an early lead. However, as the days progressed, the Philippines managed to catch up, and there was a huge surge of support from the Filipinos. In the end, the Philippines had a vote of 9,617 while Malaysia had 8,880.

Needless to say, the Filipinos celebrated, thinking that their country would be the next venue for the concert. However, Cube Entertainment soon posted on its Twitter page that they had no official Facebook page. They also announced the next venue would be Seoul, which was ironically excluded from the list.

One can truly imagine a wave of disappointment and resentment sweeping through all the hopeful fans, especially those from the Philippines, and perhaps even a few snickers from the ones who lost the contest.

Meanwhile, the one who made the fan page remains anonymous. The page was quickly deleted once the ruse was up.

The whole incident was no doubt very amusing for the troll, but then one could also look at it and see a feasible opportunity to perpetuate a scam and to net in thousands of victims. All it takes is a bit of creativity, amorality, and voila – scammers can and do come up with countless ways to exploit, victimize and harass others on Facebook. Always be careful when signing up for “official” Facebook pages. Your best bet is to go the main website of the organization or company in question and “Like” them from there.