FAKE facebook page trolls 350,000+ users as Sheikh Hamdan

From UAE to USA, I've seen family, friends and fellow facebook users comment and share a fake page to win a 10 bedroom villa in Dubai's Emirates Hills! Awesome eh?

A page, that once reposted content from the official social accounts of the Crown Prince of Dubai, has been creating posts to scam users on Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook hasn't taken any action on this page so I took to LinkedIn to create this article to tell the WORLD - HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum is NOT giving out a mansion for free!      

Not sure if you've come across this post earlier, but similar posts likes these have been making rounds on facebook, thanks to an oblivious audience and 'smartness' of this page owner.

Content likes these are being shared blindly, purely because "my friend shared it" syndrome, in this case, digital/social word of mouth.

Lifestyle is quite the HOT TOPIC on social platforms and fake pages like these have adopted content to engage with users in social spaces. From ways to make a quick million to winning a 10-bedroom mansion, this page has also given users the opportunity to win 3 Mercs! Wonder how the winners are going to collect their prize? Courier? :P

For all those of you have shared the post, please follow these steps -

1.   Delete the shared post

2.   Delete your comment on the post

3.   Report/Block and unlike the page

4.   Take an oath to verify content before posting it in the social space and keep an eye out for the verified tick which verifies the authenticity of the page.

5.   Follow HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum's official page to consume verified content.

6.   Share this article!

Now that we've done our due diligence, for users who haven't shared the fake page, thank you for keeping the social environment safe and please follow step 3 to step 6.

Having worked with the Crown Prince Department to launch hamdan.ae in the digital space, I felt it was important to expose such fake pages that pose as Faz3

The page has grown from 250,000 likes to 375,000 in less than 48 hours! The engagement rate currently stands at an impressive 124%, way beyond the average engagement rate (1-3%) which in itself is a case study, for cons! The page recently renamed itself to an "Unofficial" page to comply with facebook standards. Hope Facebook and the cyber officials get to this page before more 'innocent' users share the page.

Here's the page and live link of the post from facebook. Request you to REPORT this post to facebook instead of sharing it - https://www.facebook.com/shkhamdaan

Together we can STOP fake pages from going viral. Please spread the word and do the social environment a favour!