Video scams mostly rely on social networking websites though there are cases of the video URLs being circulated through e-mail – as these sites give access to hundreds of thousands of victims at one go. Perpetrators of the video scam operate by posting interesting sounding links on a target users’ status updates. When a user clicks on the link, it either leads to similar default postings of the link on several other contacts’ pages or will ask the user to fill out a number of surveys, which are just ways to extract personal information that can then be misused. One common example is the "shocking video", wherein the user is tempted to follow the link that says "What are you doing in this video? It is shocking, "or something similar. Since the link is posted on the users’ profile and usually looks like it has been sent by a friend, s/he often ends up clicking on the link. Another commonly used ruse involves asking the user to click on a link to view X-rated videos of celebrities.
