Facebook Recipe Page Scams

Recipe pages are quite popular on Facebook as people love sharing new recipes with each other. However, there may be a darker side to these pages as there have been reports of vulnerable users - such as the elderly - being targeted with various scams after following recipe pages on Facebook. Keep reading to know more about Facebook Recipe Page Scams.

Recipe Pages on Facebook: Cooking up Scams?

We were alerted about these scams by members of our Facebook group Global Scam Fighters. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Facebook pages sharing the same recipes. Apparently, the content has been plagiarised from recipe blogs and the stolen recipes and food images are being used to ‘Like farm’ Facebook page followers and drive traffic to shady blogs.

For example, take a look below at the recipe for ‘Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake’ that has been shared by numerous pages. All the pages have shared the same recipe and image, making it obvious that the content is not original. 

These pages are extremely active as they post multiple recipes a day with each post getting thousands of likes, comments and shares. Therefore, these pages have a massive number of followers even though they have only been created in 2019 or later. 

However, things start getting a little suspicious when you check the page information. While the pages often contain a US address in the page description, the page transparency information almost always shows that the page is operated from Morocco. It has been reported that the pages sometimes act as a lure to attract senior citizens from North America, who are then targeted with social engineering scams.

The comment activity on the pages appears to be fake too, as seen in the screenshots below. I have spotted multiple accounts posting the same comment on the same recipe across multiple pages and different accounts posting the same comment, indicating that they may be bots programmed to comment on recipe posts.

Recipe Blogs: A Front for Tech Support Scams

Occasionally, the posts will contain a link to a blog page containing the recipe. Several pages may link to the same blog, as seen below with the pages ‘Old fashioned recipe’ and ‘Grandma’s Tasty Recipe’ both linking to a blog named ‘Life With Janet’. Similarly, the pages ‘Old Tasty Recipes’ and ‘All Grandma’s Recipes’ link to a blog named ‘Recipess Website’. This suggests that the same people may be managing a multitude of identical Facebook recipe pages.

‘Life With Janet’ and ‘Recipess Website’ appear to be generic recipe blogs, albeit ones that are almost unusable due to the sheer amount of ads plastered all over the page.

Though the blogs seem innocuous, it has been reported that tech support gangs have been using paid search to reel in unsuspecting victims looking for food-related content online. 

In the right circumstances, the user is redirected to a browlock, or fake warning page, which is common in tech support scams. It checks for browser and OS and displays a relevant message claiming the user’s machine has been blocked because of a virus alert from Microsoft. Calling the number, the white hats spoke to tech support scam ‘technicians’ who tried to sell them expensive support packages on the back of the fake AV alert. 

Therefore, the blog pages supposedly act as a facade to lure unsuspecting users into tech support scams in which victims lose thousands of dollars, when all they wanted to do was read a recipe!

So, if you come across a recipe page on Facebook, think twice before liking, commenting and sharing the post as well as clicking on blog links, as what seems like a delicious recipe may be hiding a sinister scam!