A scam Facebook page offering the site ’s users a $ 1,000 Ikea gift wag adopt in nearly 40,000 victims Friday .

It ’s the late example of a Modern and pernicious course on the social - networking site as grifter — unremarkably disreputable on-line marketers try out to earn review by generating internet dealings — have flooded Facebook with these bogus gift card pages over the past month .

In late March , a similar $ 1,000 Ikea gift posting cozenage fill in more than 70,000 victims , and just last week another scam Facebook Thomas Nelson Page offering a $ 500 Whole Foods gift certificate was widely reported .

Friday ’s scam page had take in more than 37,000 users by 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time , offering them a $ 1,000 gift certificate in exchange for promoting Ikea to their friend . At that time , the page was gaining fresh fans at the rate of about 5,000 per hour . The promotion , the page said , was only useable for one day .

To participate , users must become a fan of the fake Ikea page , hosted on Facebook , and then invite all their friends to become buff . They are then organize to an affiliate merchandising page hosted by GiftDepotDirect.com , where they are asked personal data such as name , address , date of birth and home telephone number .

After that pace , the dupe is distinguish to signalize up for two on-line marketing offers — these ace with lawful Web sites such as Netflix and CreditReport.com — in fiat to lay claim the talent card .

The promised cards in these scam never show up , concord to Audri Lanford , a co - beginner of theScambustersWebsite , in an audience Tuesday before the latest cozenage varlet surfaced . In fact , the dupe ’s personal information could be used for identity theft , or worse , her computing machine could be chop . “ Why people would give this [ information ] is beyond me , but they do , ” she said .

to begin with this workweek , Facebook spokesman Simon Axten said that false gift identity card are a small problem on Facebook , but he could n’t say how many people had become fans of these scam pages . Facebook is , however , develop an automatize system to take away the pages , Axten aver via e - chain mail . “ We ’re quickly removing the groups and Page in many casing before they go viral . ”

Neither Facebook nor Ikea could be reached now for comment Friday .