{"id":115555,"date":"2018-12-17T20:27:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T20:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=115555"},"modified":"2025-07-01T22:37:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:37:45","slug":"google-maps-prize-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/google-maps-prize-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do if Google Maps says you’ve won a prize and asks for your location"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spam<\/p>\n

At Softonic, we keep you up to date about all the latest digital threats. We want to help you use your PCs, smartphones, and tablets safely by staying one step ahead of the people who are trying to undermine you.<\/p>\n

One particular method that the hackers out there have in their arsenal is the phishing scam, which sees them trying to trick you into believing a fake site, email, link etc. is legitimate. If they can do this, they may be able to install malware on your device, steal your personal information, or worse. The trick with phishing scams is to make the fake offering look as realistic as possible and a new strange phishing scam has been turning up on Google Maps that could have some worrying implications for the future.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

How to detect phishing scams<\/p>\r\n Find out now<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

Google Maps spam notifications asking for your location need to be ignored<\/h2>\n

Users on Reddit<\/a> have been talking about strange messages they\u2019ve been receiving on Google Maps. The notifications tell the user they\u2019ve won a prize. They say things like “You Have Received a Free Prize from Google,” “You Have Received a Free Prize,”\u00a0 “Congratulations for Winning Pixel.” When users then click on the links, they are asked to share their location.<\/p>\n

The problem with this is that normally only people who you have previously shared your location with can ask for your location. Something is not right.<\/p>\n

\r\n

RelatedArticles<\/p>\r\n

\r\n \r\n
\r\n
\r\n
<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

How to Share Your Live Location on Google Maps<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

\r\n
\r\n
<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

Google Maps gets public transport step-by-step instructions<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n

\r\n \r\n
\r\n
\r\n
<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

Google Maps\u2019 New Feature Will Save you Time<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n

\r\n
\r\n
<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

Google Maps might soon start telling your friends how much battery you have left<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

These requests are strange as they don\u2019t seem to offer a backdoor into the users\u2019 devices. There are clear security issues involved, however, in criminals knowing your whereabouts. If hackers are working on ways to bypass location sharing security protocols, we could see some serious security issues arising in the future.<\/p>\n

The other puzzling issue about these Google Maps spam location requests is that nobody can figure out how they are being generated.<\/strong> Several users have hypothesized that it could be related to the Nearby me<\/strong> feature, but nobody knows for sure. One user investigated the included link and followed it to three domains. After sharing screenshots of his investigation with Google, however, he never heard back.<\/p>\n

\n

There is a new (at least for me) phishing scam using @GoogleMaps<\/a> to send alerts with text like (including misspellings) “You Have Recived Free Prize From Google Calm Here [URL]”. They are using that text as the @Google<\/a>‘s account name and using the share location feature… ?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Silvano Girardi Jr. (@silvanojr) December 3, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With Google clearly trying to turn Google Maps into a business directory,<\/a> with increased features, these types of scam will not be welcome on the app. It is strange that Google hasn\u2019t taken affirmative action against this type of activity. If these types of messages continue or become more prevalent, we should expect to see Google take action.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, if you are worried about your online security, check our guide below, which will show you how to keep yourself safe online.<\/p>\n

\r\n
\r\n
\r\n
\r\n \r\n <\/div>\r\n
\r\n

The 7 security tips you really need to know<\/p>\r\n Read now<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Maps spam notifications asking for your location need to be ignored<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9073,"featured_media":115557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[1082,2346,1068,1061,1083,1027],"usertag":[839],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-115555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-android","tag-app-subdomain-redirectiongoogle-maps","tag-google","tag-google-maps","tag-ios","tag-security","usertag-vpn"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326883,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115555\/revisions\/326883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115555"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=115555"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=115555"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=115555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}