2:33 pm, December 24th, 2012
A prankster cooked up a charity scam by setting up a Facebook page pretending to be Niall Horan of One Direction.
The perpetrator promised to donate $100,000 to a children’s hospital in exchange for 100,000 “likes” on the social network.
But the real Horan was NOT behind the page or the pledge — and One Direction’s management is planning to get Facebook to remove the phony scheme.
“I’m afraid this is not Niall unfortunately,” said a spokesperson for the massively successful boy band. “We will have Facebook shut this down.”
Sadly, celebrity-related hoaxes have become all too common in the era of social media.
But a scam that exploits sympathy for sick children is especially wrong.
Follow @GossipCop on Twitter!
Like us on Facebook!