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| Scammers want money from Aden Bowman Collegiate Bears supporters. |
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If an online sports streaming site looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true. I am finding particularly with Facebook that someone will create a post being at a sporting event, and within a few minutes to perhaps a day, a link will show up in the comments section saying you can watch that event by clicking on this link.
If you click on that link, you can be sure nothing good will happen. If you are asked once you are in that link for credit card or banking information, you can then expect your credit card or bank account will be cleaned out.
If that happens, good luck in recovering funds. Usually, they go to an entity outside of Canada, and at that point, the police departments in Canada can do very little to help you. At that point, you have to deal with any insurance channels you have on your credit card or bank accounts.
Countries like Russia and China have office towers full of computer techs that work to cause havoc with online networks in other countries. That will include scams that drain your credit card or bank account to fund a foreign government. There are numerous other countries outside of Russia and China that engage in these types of activities too, and if a country gets on bad terms with Canada, you can expect that country’s hackers will target Canada’s online network to create havoc.
Often if you click on this link, you will go somewhere that will do something malicious to your computer system or your phone. There are cases where you will go to porn site that will implant something really bad on your computer or phone.
Again, if a link looks suspicious, it likely is suspicious. It is common sense in the online world, but that sense doesn’t appear to be common.
If a link to a site is posted on a social media page and the account posting it has less than 10 followers or is less than two months old, that should be a warning sign. If the link posted on a social media account doesn’t go to a known media company like CBC or TSN or a sports league like the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL, that is a warning sign.
I have found it is common for these malicious links to be in the comments section of a Facebook post be it a personal page or pages operated by sports organizations. Often, those creating the links target Facebook pages of minor sport organizations, especially not for profit ones that have limited resources to have someone moderating their social media lines.
I first ran across this about May of 2022, and the hackers targeted the social media accounts of the Saskatoon Valkyries and other WWCFL teams.
Due to the fact a lot of these sports organizations don’t stream their games, hackers will attempt to leave their malicious sports streaming links in the comments sections of the posts made by these sports organizations. Even some that have streaming services like Saskatoon Minor Football get these malicious sports streaming services links placed in the comments sections of their posts too.
I’ve seen that happen with the sports of minor baseball and minor softball too in Saskatoon. I also once saw one of these links on a post on the Facebook account of the SFU18AAAHL’s Saskatoon Stars.
These hackers are directly preying on parents. They know parents are so invested in their kids in sports they will do anything to see their kids games they can’t be at.
The hackers create sites to take money from these parents, and they love it when parents just pour open their wallets with “donations.”
I am making this post now because in Saskatchewan we are heading on to a week where the high school sports scene is heading towards football championship games. In Saskatoon, the Holy Cross High School Crusaders will play host to the 6A provincial final on Saturday, while the Aden Bowman Collegiate Bears will head to Weyburn for the 5A provincial final on Saturday.
The parents and followers of the Crusaders and Bears teams will be TARGETS by these hackers. These hackers really like Saskatchewan high school sports because streaming services are hit and miss on this front.
I have found these malicious sports streaming links often don’t appear for posts with Canada’s three leagues under the CHL umbrella in the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL or teams in U Sports. Those entities have well-known streaming services for their games. The same goes for the CJFL, but I have found malicious sports streaming links on CJFL posts.
I have found some tactics that work that prevent the frequency of these links. If you want advice on that front, please feel free to send me a direct message or email.
Online fraud with the sports industry is nothing new. I would say for at least 10 years fraud in selling fake sports merchandise has occurred.
Full disclosure, I almost fell for one of those sites in 2018. I decided to sleep on the purchase I was going to make.
The next morning I decided to do research to find out where the supposed “company” I was going to do a purchase with was located. I eventually tracked an address down to Russia. The site for that supposed “company” was eliminated a long time ago.
I’m glad I didn’t hit the purchase button, but I can see how easy it is to do.
I wish I didn’t have to write this post. It is taking away time from writing a feature story for the Prince Albert Daily Herald on University of Alberta Pandas forward Abby Soyko, working on a Saskatoon Hilltops feature on defensive tackle Craig Torgerson for my blog and working on Howe Happenings content for the Gordie Howe Sports Complex. I will still be completing all of these pieces, so watch for them.
Anyways, I am posting all of this because the idea of not talking about this subject is doing nothing. I want to use this as a reminder that these online malicious sports streaming sites are out there. I might post periodic reminders about this.
During my life when I have done work on the new side for media companies and even the sports side, I have taken part in seminars put on by police departments regarding fraud, where you learned things in an enjoyable way. They were good, and I remember one RCMP seminar was really good at helping you learn to spot counterfeit money.
One thing all these agencies said is usually only 1-in-10 persons falls for a fraud scam. Unfortunately, that 1-in-10 ratio brings in tonnes of money for fraudsters. You can get money from a lot of population with a 1-in-10 ratio.
Sometimes it is hard to find out how widespread this is too. If someone is taken for $40,000 by a fraud scam, they usually don’t want to talk about it over the shame of being taken by a fraud.
It might not be with money, but we all get taken by a fraud at some point in our lives. If you have avoided that, that is great to hear.
Again, please be aware of malicious online sports streaming sites. They will give you more than you bargained for, if you let them.
If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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