The best landing page ever… or the anatomy of a perfect scam

Nicolas BYKOFF
Nov 5 · 5 min read
The best landing page ever that will lead you to the best scam. It looks so legit ! Can you spot the differences?

You may have seen this geo-targeted ad on Facebook. And yes it’s Facebook again. (sorry I couldn’t retrieve and can’t show it to you). On this ad, everything seems legit but what makes me click is the title. It’s geo-targeted. Something like “Facebook Libra is available for sale in the Netherlands” (FYI, I am based in the Netherlands). Intrigued by this title and because of the project status, the senate hearings, and what this cryptocurrency will imply, I clicked.

As a experienced digital marketing manager, something should have tickled me already is the ad. Nevertheless, I clicked.

The fake landing is so perfect. At a first glance, I thought that it was from the Telegraph. But let’s have a closer look. Don’t let the CSS, the logo, the fonts, the webpage layout fool us.

A weird domain name: despite the Telegraph look and feel, a quick look at the domain name helps a lot: mybbaddict.com. How dare they using such an iconic media outlet to promote their service.

I was astonished. First because, despite my experience, I clicked through the ad and now I am on the landing page. Then because it looks so much like The Telegraph, doesn’t it?

Can you tell the difference? Screenshot on top is from the real website and below the fake one.

Nevertheless, I keep reading. Not for long. The first paragraph is about taking a nap and the benefit of it. But the font is so tiny that you may skip it and move to the next paragraph.

After a copy check it’s seem that an AI has written it, using most of the resources available on the first SERP (Search Engine Result Page) of Google. So I continue reading.

The second part of the article is more a manual, a how-to-proceed, to buy some Libra. The journalist was so surprised that after a small deposit, its value was multiplied by 5 in a few minutes. What did he use to buy Libra? Calibra-Pay, the head of the this entire fraud.

Always end by a call to action.

By the way all the links are leading to only one page, the Calibra Pay subscribe page.

Obviously, you won’t find here any cookies declaration, terms of use or privacy policy. I mean it’s mentioned on the footer, but the link is nowhere to be found.

But the most fun is in the fake comments at the bottom of the article. Everyone who tried, succeeded. It’s so easy to follow the registration steps….

I made a screenshot below, so you can have a look.

“Best article on the Telegraph” ! Really? Are you serious?
“Best article on the Telegraph” ! Really? Are you serious?

So what can you do to avoid being scammed by this type of people?

How to debunk a fake landing page ?

The domain name

The address bar is where you have to look first. If the page says it’s the Telegraph, the domain name should be telegraph.co.uk.
If not close the window, NOW !

The links

A good way to tell is to use your mouse pointer, to check the links. Of course without clicking on them. You should be able to see at the bottom of your browser the destination url. And so forth, see if the links are the good ones. For example if a menu item is leading to the a page having the same domain name.
As seen in the picture below, the Telegraph won’t use a link for artificial intelligence that will lead to a tracktraffic.online domain.

The content

For this landing page it’s a quite a long text. Just scroll and read to see if the content is legit. If an article on crypto currency is starting by the benefits of taking a nap, maybe there’s something wrong.

A lack of basic identification

Every trustworthy and legit website should have a terms of use, a privacy policy and a cookie consent solution. It’s kind of compulsory nowadays if you are dealing with European visitors. I don’t know if you have heard of GDPR. If not and if you are dealing with personal data of European citizens, you’d better have a look now.
Within those pages, you are able to identify a website; who the owners are, where the company is located, who the data protection officer is, etc…

If you can’t find this information, then run away. A more legit competitor will be able to provide to you all this information.

Usually, I am alert on those kind of scam, but this one has some elements that I’ve never seen before. The scam is using 2 notorious brands; Facebook and the Telegraph. And both are in a different industry; media outlet and tech. Then all the links are pointing to the same registration page. Finally the content looks like an article, even if the talking topics are contradictory and the writing quality is really poor.

A good scam architecture, that can lead most of the untrained eye to give away their banking details to an unknown service, and buying virtual goods that are not on sale yet.

Thank you for having read my article. Here’s your reward the link to the page.

Don’t forget to give a clap to my story.

Nicolas BYKOFF

Written by

Writer | Inbound Marketer | Golfer | Player, you can hire me to write.

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