As you probably know, lots of celebrities use Facebook to keep in touch with their fans and share news of upcoming events with them.
Unfortunately, lots of scammers are busy piggy-backing off the success of those celebrities by cloning their accounts and using those fake accounts to scam the celebrities’ fans.
One of the scammers’ favorite targets is Ellen DeGeneres because of her well-known penchant for giving things away, both on her show and via her social media accounts.
And unfortunately, the pace of the scams have picked up considerably in recent weeks because this is the last season that Ellen’s show will be on.
“Ellen scams” take many forms, and they’re delivered via both posts from fake “Ellen DeGeneres” fan pages and instant messages.
Luckily, it’s very easy to spot fraudulent posts from fake “Ellen DeGeneres” pages. All you need to do is remember the following two things:
1 – While Ellen does indeed give things away at times, the drawings for those giveaways ALWAYS take place on her official verified Facebook page.
Its easy to verify whether a post was made by Ellen’s official verified Facebook page. Simply click on her name to visit the page’s Timeline and look for the blue check mark that indicates that the page has been verified as actually belonging to the real Ellen DeGeneres.
This is what you should see (the profile picture might be different by the time you see this, but the info beside it should still be the same):
Note the blue check mark that denotes that this is a verified account and the username @ellentv which is Ellen’s official Facebook username.
Any “Ellen DeGeneres” page that doesn’t have the blue check mark and the @ellentv username is NOT the official Ellen DeGeneres page.
Once you make that determination you should click the Back button immediately without clicking on anything else.
2 – If you click on the name “Ellen DeGeneres” and it takes you to a personal profile instead of a verified fan page you’ll know right away that the post is a scam. Ellen always interacts with her fans via her fan page, never from a personal profile page.
3 – Any post that claims you’ll receive a prize from Ellen if you Like, Share or Comment on the post is a fraudulent post. Just ignore it and move on.
As I’ve mentioned before, simply interacting with a post by liking it, sharing it or commenting on it won’t win you a prize or get you a free widget – not from Ellen DeGeneres or anyone else.
That’s all there is to recognizing and avoiding the fraudulent posts from “Ellen DeGeneres”. Pretty simple, right?
Luckily, it’s just as easy to avoid falling victim to fraudulent instant messages that appear to have been sent by her. Just remember this and you’ll be all set:
Ellen DeGeneres will NOT be sending you an instant message from out of the blue from her verified Facebook page. She just won’t do it.
Therefore, if you receive an instant message from anyone claiming to be “Ellen DeGeneres” you can rest assured that it’s not really from her.
Important: If you do receive a message claiming to be from Ellen, don’t even open it. If you happen to open it by mistake DO NOT click any links in the message because if you do you’ll end up on a page that’s infested with malware. Just sayin’.
Bottom line: From all accounts, Ellen DeGeneres is a very generous person who partners with a wide variety of companies for contests and giveaways.
But those contests and giveaways will always take place on her official verified Facebook page (again, look for the blue check mark and the @ellentv username). Such “offers” on any other page or any personal profile can safely be assumed to be fraudulent.