Suspicious links being passed around on WhatsApp claiming to offer a free ‘Cadbury Easter Chocolate Basket’ are directing users to spammy marketing websites.
Fake competitions and giveaways are always popular in the run-up to holidays such as Easter and Christmas, and the latest spammy scheme is targeting WhatsApp users in a bid to lure them to spammy marketing survey websites seeking their contact details.
If you’re on WhatsApp, there is a good chance you’ve been sent a link like the one below.
Cadbury FREE Easter Chocolate Basket
5.000 free gifts for you
Despite the claims in the link, there are no free Cadbury products on offer. This is bait used to lure WhatsApp users into doing two things. First, to share the same link to their own friends on WhatsApp. And second, to visit marketing websites where they are told to complete surveys in order to grab their “prize”.
These scams are more frequently encountered on Facebook, where crooks set up fake Facebook pages or contact Facebook users telling them they’ve won a prize. However more recently crooks have been exploiting messaging apps like WhatsApp to spread their schemes.
If a WhatsApp user clicks the above link, they’re initially taken to a page like the one below that claims in order to get their hands on their free Cadbury Easter Basket, they need to spam their own friends with the same link (this – of course – is how the scam spreads).
Once the user sends the same link to enough friends, they’re then directed to marketing websites that then ask them to complete surveys. Such surveys are designed to harvest personal and contact information of a visitor, which is then used to spam them with unsolicited offers (so expect lots of emails, texts and phone calls for car insurance, diet supplements and sexual enhancement products).
And if you’re unluckier still, you may even see your details sold off to cyber-crooks and identity thieves, making you the perfect target for more sinister scams.
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And by the time a person jumps through all the hoops do they then realise that there really isn’t any free chocolate at the end of this cyber-Easter Egg hunt. But by that point it is too late – they’ve already handed over their personal details.
If you get these links, don’t click them. Giveaways and promotions are held on the official social media channels or websites of the companies involved. And no legitimate competition is going to force users to spam their own friends in order to enter.
Our advice – if you receive these links, stay well clear of them.
