Featured Image Credit: Martin Katler via Unsplash, Bermix Studio via Unsplash
Topics: PlayStation, PlayStation 5
Topics: PlayStation, PlayStation 5
Despite having been out for a solid year and a half, it’s still way harder than it should be to get your hands on a shiny new PS5. The perfect storm of high demand, scalpers, and limited stock thanks to the global chip shortages has meant that even now, you have to be ready to launch into those online queues with your card details comfortably memorised if you want to stand a good chance of securing one.
It’s still really easy to miss the stock alerts and be too late to those queues though, so understandably, a lot of people are still feeling quite desperate. Sadly, that feeling can also leave people quite vulnerable to being scammed online, and currently, fraudsters are employing one particularly strange tactic to try and get money out of unsuspecting Facebook users who just want a new console.
Even if you are lucky enough to own a PS5, I doubt it'll look as cool as this custom painted one. Have a look below.
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As reported on the Malwarebytes blog, there’s recently been a surge of posts in trading and selling groups on Facebook from people posing as grieving parents who can’t stand to see their dead child’s console lying around the house. An example of one of these reads: “My daughter died while coming back from college last week. She was hit by a running car, my heart bleeds everyday. I bought a PS5 for her, she never got to see it. I want to give out the PS5 for free to someone who needs it. Seeing the PS5 everyday hurts my soul.”
What generally then happens is the scammer will have anyone interested message them privately, and try to get them to pay for the shipping costs upfront. Obviously, the PS5 in question doesn’t even exist, so this is all just a way to swindle people out of some cash before promptly blocking them and vanishing into the night.
When it comes to buying stuff online, the phrase “too good to be true” is relevant more often than not - even if a story might appear to be convincing, chances are that if someone’s offering a free PS5, there’s going to be a catch. Stay vigilant out there, folks.