The organisers of the Island Games have themselves tried to combat the problem by reporting the fake pages to Meta, the owner of Facebook. However, Facebook has said the fake profiles do not breach its community standards.
Guernsey Police have now said they are “continuing to see evidence of scammers trying to defraud islanders during the Island Games”.
A spokesperson said: “We would like to remind islanders to please be aware of scammers attempting to harvest personal data and credit card information off the back of the Island Games’ live streams.”
The Games organisers have arranged for live streams at many of the events with no payment needed to access any of the coverage.
“These official live streams do not require any payment or details to access and can be found on the official website www.guernsey2023.gg,” said Guernsey Police.
“Scammers are, however, widely sharing links via social media to fake sites with the live streams hosted on them. The majority of these comments are on Facebook posts relating to the Games. These fake, scam sites require credit card details to be entered. People should not enter their details on these sites.”
Guernsey Police have also asked public organisations in Guernsey, particularly those involved in the Games, to monitor their social media comments to delete the scammers’ posts as they appear.
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Island Games scammers multiplying