Is Carlton Draught giving away 24-pack beers to users who share a link? Fact Check

Links are being shared across social media, specifically Facebook, that claim Australian lager brand, Carlton Draught, is giving away 24-packs of beer for its anniversary to anyone who shares a link on Facebook.

FALSE

An example of such a scammy link can be read below –

Carlton Draught has announced that everyone who shares this link will be sent a 24-Pack of Beer for it’s anniversary. TODAY

The claim that those who share the link will get a free pack of beer is false. This is a popular type of fake giveaway which are prolific on social media, and target many different brands. Such links are designed to trick social media users into visiting spammy marketing websites that are designed to harvest a user’s contact information in order to sell those details to other third party companies.

This inevitably leads to anyone who falls for this scam consequently being spammed by a number of marketing websites.

These scams are incredibly popular on social media, since they rely on the “just in case” justification. That is, social media users fail to see the downside of entering such a fake giveaway and consequently enter it “just in case” it’s genuine.

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This in turn leads to high volumes of social media users willingly give out their contact information to spammers. This can lead to more serious scams, especially if identity thieves obtain the information harvested by these marketing websites and use them to launch targeted identity theft scams.

Carlton Draught has since announced on their Facebook page that this is a scam.

Wouldn’t be Putin your finger on that link, it’s a scam…

Spotting fake giveaways like this is easy. Firstly, the links do not lead to any website associated with the Carlton Draught brand. Secondly, the website that does load asks visitors to share a link on their timeline before continuing, which is a big red flag to a scam. And thirdly, the website also asks visitors to complete spammy surveys (which harvest a visitor’s information) which is another red flag to a scam.

We recommend social media users refrain from sharing such spammy links on social media.