Today I posted an answer to the “Find the differences between the pictures” game official Facebook page and soon after someone, claiming to be staff conacted me. I wasn’t suspicious at first, but when they mentioned winning real money instead of gems, it struck me as odd, as I know the winners get gems.
I continued to talk to them to see what they say and they sent me a link they said I should use to contact a claiming agent. At this point the alarm bells were already ringing that this is scam, so I of course ignored their link and blocked them. I made screenshots of the conversation, see attached.
Besides posting here, should I report this somehow, for example to FB or sending a ticket through the game?
I was wondering if I should hide the name, but my line of thought was that it’s better not to, so people know who to look out for. It probably isn’t even their real name. When I got suspicious and tried to review the profile, it was a 1 day old profile with just “works at Empires and Puzzles” and no other info.
Anyway, reported the conversation to FB yesterday, I probably haven’t been the only one, as it seemed the profile was no longer active.
Please report all scams of this nature to Facebook directly, as there is little we can do to prevent these on their platform. I highly advise never clicking on links in any social media in-box and blocking the page. Small Giant Games will never contact any player unless you are a Facebook Weekend Challenge winner posted and communicated through our official and verified Facebook page.
SGG could alert players to be aware of scammers. Like posting on their official facebook page, and on this forum.
OP wanted to help by alerting the company, the company could want to help alert players to avoid scams.
I highly recommend not dumping the responsibility to protect your consumer base on a social media platform. Instead use the platform to protect your players … simply by communicating.
…seems pretty massive and gaming is a BIG industry and market. I am sure SGG is doing whatever they need to (behind the scenes) to protect their company from scammers and fraudsters trying to “game their system”. As for the players… it’s unclear if and what SGG will do to protect them. I assume we find out if we are victims of a scam… and see how SGG responds.
I guess that’s why I was bit disheartened to see the responsibility placed on facebook above… instead of… “hey , we need to protect our paying customers a bit more somehow.”
I’ve heard of people using bots, I’ve seen offers for “free gem deals” if you sign up on another site or download some app, etc… but these kind of topics aren’t discussed visibly here on the forum and SGG doesn’t point out to players what new scams to look out for… so it’s a really foggy area and players need I guess need to be active to take care of the community through forums and social media.
This is good for the 300 people who read this thread.
But is it enough for this info to be relayed to whatever % of your consumer audience you just reached here? (ie. 300 people out of 3 million Monthly Active Users?)
I mean… e+p has 1.7m followers on facebook. The current facebook content strategy is … very lacking to put it nicely. Your FB as a communication and community hub can yield much higher ROIs.
I am asking because when I first joined E+P, I almost fell for a gem scam. Not being a regular mobile gamer… I didn’t know about these scams. I want more people to be aware… but don’t have the same reach that SGG has.
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P.s. and to help contribute… if SGG ever wants to hire an agency that strategizes and handles social hubs for major global brands… I am happy to recommend some.
Call me cynical but because it’s only players that are being scammed, then I don’t think they really care
Now if they were giving away free gems on FB to everyone then I think it would be a different matter
I follow Ozzy Man Reviews and he’s plagued by it and FB does very little to help him. All he can do is put a message out saying he doesn’t contact people offering free stuff. That’s basically all he has in his armoury on there.
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