I’m back in China now which means that Facebook is blocked and I cannot be bothered to bypass the Great Firewall of China for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I received a Facebook e-mail from a friend suggesting me to become a fan of another candidate phishing page: Wal Mart Market Research Survey – Receive a $1000 Gift Card for your time! I don’t have to go further than the page name to be able to make a comment about it.

Wal Mart? Who’s that? I don’t know of any company called Wal Mart but I do know of a multi-billion dollar corporation called Walmart. I wonder what this Wal Mart place sells because a $1000 gift card sounds really nice.

But okay, I’ll give the page creator the benefit of the doubt even though they do not know how to spell Walmart correctly. Did some snooping and it is official–from Walmartstores.com themselves. It’s a scam. Sorry to break the news to you.

Related Articles:

• Walmartstores.com: Gift Card Sponsor Offer Scam
• Scam Alert: Gift Card Survey Opens Floodgates for Solicitations, Spam

Welcome to the iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It sequel. After the second post, they posted a link to another Facebook page Invite Your Friends and Get Free Stuff and allowed comments or maybe that was during the second post and I just didn’t mention it. Details, what a…, oh well. You can imagine the number of responses. Actually, there’s only 450 comments that includes a healthy mixture of advertisements for more ‘free iPad’ offers, defamatory comments and testimonies.

Back in the day when I used to walk to school in neck-high snow and subzero temperatures in my bare feet, I used to reply to my friends that sent me chain letters to my inbox with facts or websites about why the chain letter was a scam. You just need to educate sometimes. We all know that the Prince of Nigeria has made you his heir, he made me his heir, too. Actually, I’ve never received that specific phishing scam but it is a popular one from what I read.

The new head count of fans on iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It has increased to 240,000 fans. I think they caught wind that I was bored and wanted to rain on their parade. They’ve moved, their new Facebook page is We’re Giving Away Free Apple iPads. They took my advice and increased the quality of some of their images and even decided to include testimonial Facebook comments, of course, just a screen shot. Instead of editing their poor grammar on their original image, they decided they were not going to bother with it at all and took it out entirely.

The steps are still the same. Just three simple steps.

Step 1. Become a Fan.

Step 2. Uhhh.. when you become a fan, we will tell you Step 2. So… Become a Fan!

Step 3. That follows Step 2 so… Become a Fan!

Even the Terms and Conditions are the same.

The Apple iPad giveaway is coming from a third party site myrewardsvault.com. Please see their Terms and Conditions for further information.

This Facebook Page is not affiliated with Apple Inc. All Apple® trademarks are the property of Apple Inc. and this Facebook Page does not, in any way, claim to represent or own any of the Apple® trademarks or rights. Apple® does not own, endorse, or promote this Facebook Fan Page.

The link on their wall leads you to a YouTube video of a fourth-party-posted Apple iPad Commercial. The new We’re Giving Away Free Apple iPads has recruited 46,000 fans. In total, that’s almost 300,000 users who took the bait. I wonder what their next Facebook page name will be.

Other variations:

• Apple iPad Market Research Testing: Test and keep and iPad today
• Get a FREE iPad
• Get Your Free iPad…
• How to get a Free iPad!
• iPad Beta – Test It and Keep It!
• iPad Beta Center – Get an iPad before anyone else!
• iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It
• iPad Research Program – Test It and Keep It!
• Test & Keep a NEW Apple iPad
• Testers Wanted: Test New iPad, Keep It

Part 1. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It, really?
Part 2. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It reacts?
Part 3. iPad Research Center – Test & Keep It: The Sequel
Part 4. iPad Research Center, Steps 2 and 3