Resolved Is this offer legit or a scam?

I frequent an automotive forum and I just found I might have won a prize. I clicked on a thread on that forum and right under all the headers was a blinking banner saying, "This is no joke!" and that I'm the 100,000th viewer, and below that box is a "Click here" link. Suspicious but also curious, I clicked on it, which caused a window framed like a fancy certificate to open up saying "Congratulations! You are today's California Winner!" Displayed are four prizes I'm eligible for (an Apple Macbook Pro, an Apple iPad 2, an Apple iPhone 4, or a $1000 Visa gift card), my claim number and today's date, and "How to Claim: Choose a prize below and then confirm your email and shipping address." Below each of the four prizes is a blinking "CLAIM NOW" button. That's it.

Has anyone else here ever had something like that appear on a legitimate Web site? I suspect the thing might be a scam, but I'd hate to pass up a $1000 gift card if the deal is legit. Wary of falling into a trap, I haven't clicked on any of those prize buttons, but I'm keeping that window open, using a second instance of my browser (SeaMonkey) to compose and send this post, and anxiously await your advice. Hurry!

 

You could try to send a note to the moderater of the forum and question the legitimacy of the offer. As the saying goes "If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck and walks like a duck then it probably is a duck "!!!! or in this case a scam.

 

Thanks for the quick replies, guys. I'll close that other instance of my browser now and run a couple of quick scans to see if I've already been attacked.

What made me more suspicious than anything else was that the source of the thing didn't identify itself. Even if it had, I would have still been leery. Thanks again.

I'll mark the thread as "Resolved. "

 

If you have not entered any competitions in the past few weeks, how on earth can you be a winner. I never answer this type of offer, it a certainty 99.9% to be a scam and only prize you will get is trouble.

 

Although this thread is a few days old, I would just like to say that the only malware I have ever contracted (a trojan/dropper gen) was while using SeaMonkey & the infection was from a flash advert. I don't blame SeaMonkey, I did not use NoScript in those days, & now if I use SeaMonkey or Firefox I make sure I have NoScript (or at least a flashblocker). It may not be bulletproof but it can be a very effective security device. I had inadvertently clicked on an ad & many of these flash ads contain malware, as I discovered to my chagrin.

Norton & Spybot missed the trojan & only SUPERAntiSpyware found it. I also downloaded (the freeware version of) MBAM that day & checked with that as well with a full scan. I don't use SAS any more, but I still run MBAM on my notebook.

The best thing to do if you suspect that you have been infected is to do a full AV scan & then scan with MBAM or SAS (or both). It may take a while but I'm pretty sure that after running that many scans you should be pretty safe.

It might be prudent to talk to some of the malware experts on this site just to be totally sure as well.

At the end of the day, beware clicking on just any pop-up: WYCIWYG! (What you click is what you get)