Facebook events purporting to offer free Southwest Airlines tickets are becoming popular on the Internet’s number one social networking site.
In yet another Facebook giveaway scam going viral, the latest bait used to lure victims into online traps is free Southwest Airlines tickets. In some cases it’s 4 Southwest Airlines tickets, or a free family holiday.
We’ve been seeing a surge of fake Facebook giveaways scammers setting up Events or Pages on Facebook to entice victims. Only last week our YouTube channel Sixty Second Scams reported on a similar scam claiming to give away Disney tickets.
Recently fake Facebook competitions have been set up using Mercedes, Chevrolet, Range Rovers, Qantas and a number of other high profile brands at bait to lure victims.
And just like with those scams, a Facebook Event or Page is used to capture victims. In many cases the fake Facebook Event that has been set up by scammers claims that to qualify for free tickets you need to join the Event, invite your friends and post a comment.
After that you need to click a link to an external (and potentially malicious) website and follow the instructions there. In most cases recently this means completing spammy surveys that harvest your personal information and send you unsolicited emails.
In the case of one “free Southwest Airlines tickets” Facebook Event, we were forwarded to a webpage that offered us a chance to win various freebies by entering our personal information, and by doing so we …
… “consent to MyOffers, its sponsors and its clients (including EM Group and clients noted below) sending you information by post, telephone, email and SMS, about products and/or services that may be of interest to you.”
This doesn’t sound particularly appealing.
Of course the scammers who set up the Facebook Event falsely claiming to offer free tickets will get paid every time they send over someone who is willing to give up their personal details.
And that is of course why they do it. Essentially the scammers are getting a commission [from third party companies that run the surveys] by tricking people into believing they will get something for free, when that is not the case.
It is important not to fall for these scams since they put you at risk of spam and if you follow the instructions by inviting your friends to the Event as well then you will be putting them at risk too.
For more information on Facebook giveaway scams and how to avoid them, click this link.