A fake Facebook post claiming to be from travel company First Choice is going viral that asserts to offer a free holiday for 4 people to Cyprus. However the post is a scam.
We’re often warning about spammy Facebook posts claiming to offer free competition prizes such as holidays for those that comment on a post and follow a Facebook page. Such posts are designed to trick Facebook users into following a page and in many cases (like this one) to trick users into visiting spammy marketing webpages.
The Facebook post (below) urges Facebook users to enter the competition by commenting and sharing the post. The post also mentions in the comments that users must also click the Sign Up button on the page to enter. However that button leads to a spammy marketing webpage which is designed to harvest a user’s personal information so they can be spammed with unsolicited mail, calls and texts.
!!ANNOUNCEMENT!! I’m a manager at First Choice at 7pm on the 27th June I’ve been instructed to randomly choose someone who has shared/commented this post to win this envelope in my hands containing travel documents for a FREE holiday in Cyprus for 4!
To keep updated like our page! Good luck everyone!
It’s a pretty standard fake competition like-farming scam. Like-farming refers to the process of obtaining likes, shares or comments on social media through deception or exploitation. In this case, since the competition is completely fake and just a ruse to lure Facebook users, it’s deception.
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Such scams can be potentially dangerous. To sign up, you have to give your details to shady websites which will almost certainly bombard you with spam. You also risk being contacted via Facebook by the crooks that set up the page, who can subsequently attempt to orchestrate any number of scams on you. And of course, since you’re instructed to share the post on your timeline, you’re putting your friends at risk too.
The scam is clearly fake since the Facebook page that publishes these fake posts isn’t the real First Choice Facebook page. Real pages are denoted by a blue verification tick on Facebook. Also the website that users are forwarded to when clicking the Sign Up button also does not belong to First Choice.
Remember, only engage with promotions on Facebook pages that you know belong to the brand in question.
You can learn more about Facebook like-farming here.