Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

The gamers get virtual currency three ways:

* Winning it playing the games
* Paying for it with real money
* By accepting offers from third-parties -- usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an "offers" provider -- a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker's users together.

It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.

Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:

"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have

Tags: health care scam, facebook, farmville,

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