In news that should shock absolutely nobody, scammers have been trying to cash in on Whitney Houston’s death. One trick: links floating around Facebook purporting to contain a video of Houston’s autopsy that “reveals a shocking secret that explains her death.”
(MORE: The Voice: Whitney Houston (1963-2012))
If you click on the link, you’re apparently greeted with a pop-up telling you that you need to install an update in order to view the YouTube video. Click install, and all hell breaks loose.
People, people, people.
For starters, don’t click on links in Facebook that claim to lead to videos that sound too unbelievable to be true. It’s all subjective, I know, so here’s another tip:
See the actual phony link here?
It’s missing three apostrophes and says “autopsy reports reveals,” yet claims to come from celebrity gossip machine, TMZ. You should expect nothing but perfect grammar from TMZ — and all celebrity news outlets, for that matter. This is serious business.
And the apparent title of the video, as seen in the image up top? While “The Dark Secret of Whitney Houston’s Life Revealed And How It Cost Her Life!” finally nails the apostrophe, it’d easily be one of the worst titles TMZ has ever cobbled together. Truly, truly awful. Also, the T in “Youtube” should be capitalized. Also, a Flash Player update would never look like that.
If you’re still not sure about a suspicious link like this, go straight to the source. If TMZ.com really had video of Whitney Houston’s autopsy, it’d be all over the front page.
[via Sophos]
(MORE: Sony Music Chided for Upping Price of Whitney Houston iTunes Album)