The photo used as part of this new scam is actually of the US Airways Flight 1549 that crashed in Hudson River in January 2009.
A “news” article, preying on people’s interest in MH370, is actually a scam, duping the reader to share the story in order to view a video of the supposedly found plane.
According to The International Business Times, readers should be warned against the survey scam that comes in a video titled: “Malaysian Air Flight MH-370 Found By Sailor”; with the subtitle “Mystery is solved – Sailor Rewarded $5 Million on spot”.
With an image of an aircraft submerged in water used as the cover photo, those who are gullible would click on it, thinking it is legit reporting.
However, according to the online business portal, the image is a photo of the US Airways Flight 1549 that crashed in Hudson River in January 2009.
A source from Hoax-slayer.com said when a reader clicks on the link that comes with the video, it would link to a bogus Facebook account with instruction that once shared, the video would play.
“But after sharing, you would still not get to see the video. After sharing, there would be a survey to complete as a means of verifying the reader’s age, and no matter how many surveys are completed, the promised video never emerges, because it never existed to begin with,” it said.
These scams are marketing schemes aimed at generating money from the amounts of shares their Facebook pages gets.
Worse case scenarios would see some survey scams even asking victims for their mobile phone numbers and other personal information, including names, addresses and important contact details.
These usually ends with hefty phone bills. Victims may also receive pestering promotional emails, phone calls from marketers and spam mails.