What is the “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam

“Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam is a classic example of a giveaway scam that tries to phish users’ personal information. As long as users do not interact with it, the scam is not dangerous. It’s also a very common scam that most users will have encountered at least once.

 

 

 

This “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam is displayed on questionable websites to which users get redirected either by adware or by visiting high-risk websites. The site displays an image of an iPad and explains that you have been selected to receive the iPad if you subscribe to a service called lovedates. In small letters at the top of the screen, it also says that there’s only a one-day trial and that $44.99 would be billed every month if the subscription is not canceled in time.

You have been selected. Get a chance to win the brand new iPad Pro, included in the lovedates Trial.

If you engage with the scam and click “Claim my iPad now”, you will be taken to a site that requests personal information. It initially asks for a phone number, email address, and zip code. If you proceed further, the full name and payment card details are also requested. If you submit your information, it will be sent to the scam operators immediately. Providing a phone number and home address would be bad enough, giving away payment card details would lead to financial loss. What would likely happen is you’d be subscribed to the lovedates service, which costs $44.99/month. There would likely be no way to unsubscribe so the charges would keep occurring until the card is canceled. Scammers would also make other unauthorized charges.

It’s worth mentioning that these types of giveaways are never legitimate. No legitimate company will host giveaways this way. If a giveaway was to be hosted, it would be announced via legitimate platforms, not random ads/redirects.

Why are you seeing the “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam on your screen?

There are several triggers for the “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” and similar scams. In most cases, users get redirected to them when browsing high-risk websites. Certain websites (e.g. sites with pornographic and pirated content) host questionable ads and trigger redirects to all kinds of shady websites. Clicking on anything on those sites often leads to a redirect. An adblocker easily solves this issue.

If the redirects happen regularly, even when visiting previously ad-free sites, your computer may be infected with adware. As long as adware is present on a computer, the redirects will continue occurring. Adware is a minor but annoying infection, usually installed using the software bundling method. The infection was likely attached to a free program as an extra offer. The offers that are added to programs are set to install alongside automatically and do not require explicit permission from users. This is already problematic. What is worse is that the offers are initially hidden in settings users do not normally use when installing programs. This makes software bundling a rather controversial method. It’s also common for anti-virus programs to detect programs that use software bundling as potential threats.

The offers that come added to freeware are optional but they need to be manually deselected to prevent their installations. This is not difficult to do as long as users pay attention when installing programs and choose the correct settings. Program installation windows always recommend using Default settings but if users do that, all offers added to the program will install automatically. Using Advanced settings is recommended because these settings display all offers. Users are also given the option to deselect all of them. It’s always recommended to deselect all offers because otherwise, the computer would be filled with junk programs that can be difficult to get rid of.

“Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam removal

Your next course of action depends on why you’ve encountered the “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam. If you were browsing a questionable website when the redirect happened, it’s likely the site that is at fault. Install a good adblocker program and make sure it’s always enabled. We also recommend installing an anti-virus program like WiperSoft and running a scan because adware could be behind the redirects. Only removing the adware would remove “Chance To Win The New iPad Pro” scam from your screen permanently.