The Efeso Collins funeral hoax is coming for music fans too.
The Efeso Collins funeral hoax is coming for music fans too.
Watch out, festival fans: another Facebook scam is doing the rounds.
The sudden passing of Fa’anānā Efeso Collins was a tragedy, of that there is no doubt.
Most people saw it that way.
But one didn’t.
One lowlife saw it as an opportunity to make some money.
One scumbag used it as a chance to launch a scam.
And it worked.
“One guy this happened to was a church minister who wanted to watch the funeral. He sent bank details as requested and fund money had been taken from his account. There are so many of these popping up. They look official – they are headed up with details of livestreams and photos of the Tipene Funerals chapel. But many are scams.”
That is, quite obviously, disgusting.
Efeso’s funeral is not being livestreamed.
That scammer got money out of at least one mourner.
But scams offering livestreams of major events are happening more often.
They’re proliferating on Facebook, through fake accounts, weird links and dodgy websites.
And they’re coming for your favourite music festivals and concerts too.
I first noticed them leading up to Eden Fest, the new music festival that featured Lauryn Hill and Six60 playing at Go Media Stadium on October 7.
(I would love to link to a review, but as I reported at the time, no one covered it.)
I followed the festival on Facebook and noticed that under every post was a comment offering a link to a festival livestream.
It looked legit enough for me to think at the time: “That’s cool.”
Many overseas festivals offer event livestreams, including Coachella, Lollapalooza and Rolling Loud. I tune in often and they’re brilliant, the next best thing to being there, so our biggest local events copying this initiative seemed like a no-brainer.
Then the same thing happened for Juicy Fest.
The throwback hip-hop event has become one of our most popular summer festivals, pulling in crowds of more than 40,000 across four New Zealand locations where TI, YG and Ashanti performed. (But not The Game. Never The Game.)
This one seemed even more suspect: an account called The Best FIFA Football Awards 2022 was offering a livestream link to Juicy Fest Canberra, and many of the other Juicy Fest locations.
Look at all those emojis.
Look at that weird website link.
Seems suspect right?
Then came Electric Avenue’s turn.
The Christchurch event has grown to become our biggest one-day festival with 35,000 people descending on Hagley Park to take in The Chemical Brothers’ first show here in 10 years.
If there was a livestream, I would have binged the shit out of it.
But Electric Avenue was not being livestreamed.
Just like the Efeso Collins funeral livestream, it was all a hoax.
Click on those links, and at some point you will be asked for your bank account or credit card details.
Give them those and your fate – and your money – is out of your control.
Scams have infiltrated Facebook to the point that Zuck’s social media empire is barely usable.
It’s kind of like the digital version of Sky World; an online building decaying so badly the walls are caving in. It’s a shell of its former self.
Webworm has reported on Facebook’s proliferation of dodgy AI images everyone seems to think are real, and can lead users to genuinely bad places.
I’ve written about so many Facebook scams I’ve lost count.
In October I warned about a dodgy Facebook account selling tickets to The Weeknd’s now-postponed Eden Park shows.
When I researched that account, Google Maps showed those “tickets” were being sold from someone living out of this UK address…
At the beginning of 2021, all I wanted to do was attend my high school reunion.
That turned out to be a Facebook scam too.
Then there was this insanity, which still makes me chuckle…
Facebook eh.
What a ride.
Can someone just pull the damn plug out?
What you need to know…
On Monday, I speculated that our booming live music scene would soon have more stadium shows added into the mix. Now, we may have some names. According to this report, Beyonce, Kylie Minogue, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Olivia Rodrigo, The Cure, The Eagles, Avril Lavigne and The Rolling Stones are all set to visit Australia this year. Unless they pull a Taylor Swift on us, you’d have to suspect they’d include New Zealand dates too.
Stuff has the best report from last night’s first ever Jonas Brothers New Zealand visit at Spark Arena, a tour cheekily dubbed The Eras Tour (no, not that one). Their critic says: “It’s a lot to witness and borders on cringe in the special way Disney stars do.”
I have thoughts about Sampha’s sideshow at the Powerstation last week, and many aren’t good. I’ve got a future post planned on that, but for now, take in the review from 13thfloor that reports: “A random guy just suddenly slumped down against the wall and began playing Mario Kart on his Switch on the floor.”
Someone wrote the headline, “Hardcore band fires singer for dosing bassist with estrogen,” so of course I clicked on it. Now you must too.
Finally, let’s have a moment of quiet ahead of a weekend that includes so many noisy rock acts performing in Auckland only a maniac would attempt to see them all. I am that maniac! Good luck out there. See you in the mosh.
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