Shantell Green, a senior biology major, sits at her computer typing an eight-page, single-spaced paper for her world geography class, when suddenly she stops and sighs; she has come to a writer’s block.
She then clicks on the unopened Internet tab at the bottom of her screen where she is already signed in to her Facebook page.
She clicks on a Facebook game, Farmville, and plays it until she runs out of pretend money, then returns to her paper.
What Green does not know is she may have just been charged to play this 10-minute game.
“I thought that I should be weary of who I talked to on Facebook, not the games that I play,” Green said.
According to Time Magazine, the most popular games played by Facebook gamers are Mafia Wars, Farmville and Restaurant City.
More than 63 million people play Farmville, which happens to be the game most reported for scams, also according to Time.
It is easy to get scammed by Farmville because the purpose of the game is to create a virtual farm by growing crops and livestock so that you can earn virtual money.
In order to farm at a quicker pace, a person can invest real cash through PayPal or a credit card to purchase virtual goods, such as planting seed or a tractor.
In the case that a person does not have real cash, the game presents offers from advertisers like a subscription to NetFlix, a survey or an IQ test which upon completion will give the person some seed, a tractor or virtual cash in return.
According to the executive manager of TrialPay, Hubert Grant, once a person accepts the offers from these advertisers they usually get some time of mysterious fee charged to their cell phone bill.
“They require a cell phone number to send you the results of your quiz. When you enter your number and create a password, you have now subscribed to a service you never wanted but will be billed for,” Grant said.
These advertisers who are scamming people are targeting children more so than adults said Time Magazine.
“They [advertisers] know children will not have money or credit cards, but they know that most children have cell phones and won’t be skeptical about giving their telephone number which makes them easy targets,” Grant said.
Even though children are being targeted by these advertisers, adults and teens are falling victim to these scams as well.
“I took a quick IQ quiz on Facebook while playing Mafia Wars, and a week later I started getting text messages telling me that my subscription had been processed and I would be charged monthly; I was so confused,” said Nathan Young, a freshman business administration major.
Companies like Zynga, Myspace and RockYou, who endorse these virtual games, have teamed up to find a solution to this on going problem.
Mark Pincus, executive director of Zynga, the company that creates these games, has already taken down two Facebook games due to issues with affiliated advertisers.
In a mixer, Pincus bragged to application developers of the not-so-ethical methods used to increase profits.
“I knew that I wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right [expletive] now,” Pincus said. “We did anything possible just to get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.”
“There are so many gimmicks and scams online that students need to make sure thy are careful and read all the fine print on Web sites,” Green said.
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