Tragedy struck yesterday when the tech world lost an iconic visionary known as Steve Jobs. While most of the world paid respects and held tributes to the man, heartless scammers decided to take advantage of the situation with a brand new ploy. Some scammers have set up a website at the URL: stevejobsfuneral.com, which attempts to collect email addresses by luring people into a contest to win a MacBook Pro by asking people to enter in a sweepstakes.
In addition to the email collection ploy, the site has links to an online store selling Apple products. However, the site contains affiliate advertising info that brings revenue for any purchases made through the links. While it isn’t as bad as distributing Trojan horses and viruses, the fact that these people are capitalizing on Steve Jobs’ death to make a quick buck is pretty sickening.
If you see links to dodgy looking websites giving you the chance to win MacBook Pro notebooks, remember to avoid them. If you want to purchase any Apple products be sure to do it through the official Apple Store or authorized resellers. These guys don’t deserve to make any money for what they’re doing, and you can be pretty sure any email address entered will be a target for spam in the future.
And while stevejobsfuneral.com might be the biggest Steve Jobs-related scam right now, you can be sure it won’t be the last, at least not for awhile. As usual, be wary of links you click, even if they were shared to you by a friend. Always get your news from official websites when possible.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Inc, Scam and Steve Jobs.