Scams Target Social Games

Given the huge popularity of some social games on Facebook and MySpace, it was inevitable that scammers and spammers would start digging up ways to abuse the system. Deceptive advertising is part of the problem. One common scam offers in-game currency for filling out a survey and requests a mobile phone number the results can be texted to. The user then finds themselves with a $10/month subscription billed to their phone until they cancel. Sometimes details about these charges are buried deep in Terms of Service that people rarely read. A recent TechCrunch article examines the problem and the implications it has for honest game developers in considerable detail. At least one of the industry leaders, Zynga, has responded by cracking down on some of these scams, but if social game currency ends up anything like MMORPG currency, things will likely get worse, so be careful with your phone and credit card numbers.

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