 TITLE: While You’re Playing Fortnite, Fraudsters Are Looking to Play You CONTENT: A Common Fortnite Scam: YouTube Free V-Bucks\n--------------------------------------------\nThat kind of money and the addictive nature of the game has drawn criminal elements to the Fortnite universe. New players mean new opportunities for fraudsters who promise something free to help elevate your game. In Fortnite there are V-bucks, the virtual money that players can use to buy new gear.\nWhile recently playing the game with my son and wanting to help advance our \"Battle Pass\" standing, I did a search for \"free V-bucks.\" I found results promising we would win huge amounts of Fornite V-bucks. My son suggested I check out those third-party videos on YouTube, and what came back were more than 4.6 million various videos promising players to get free V-bucks by following their instructions or tips. Most send you to a website where you share an obscure code from your game account; in some cases, that allows scammers to gain access to your payment information either on your smartphone or game console. The third-party sites also have plenty of ads (which can lead you to download malware on your computer) or follow up with an email, which is really a phishing attempt or to download their app that can have spyware.\nI know because I watched plenty of the videos hoping to find one I thought was legitimate but was too nervous to click on anything. Ironically, one video demo of how to get free V-bucks has the username shown as \"VIRUSS999.\" While that username may be an easy sign of a fake, other ways to spot a scam video are to look at the number of likes and dislikes a video has received, and whether or not the poster is verified by YouTube with a check symbol next to their name. END