A Facebook post has gone viral claiming to offer a chance to “win 10 minutes in our store to go crazy” in a JB Hi-Fi store. The post was made by a like-farming Facebook page posing as the JB Hi-Fi Facebook page.
However the Facebook page and the post it made have nothing to do with JB Hi-Fi, and the competition is a complete scam.
The post (below) implored readers to like the picture, comment crazy and share the picture on their timeline. As is common with these types of like-farming scams, the post was later edited to include an additional step where users were then instructed to visit an external webpage that was – in reality – a spammy marketing website that deals with harvesting personal information of those who visit to then target them with spam.
WWIN 10 MINUTES IN OUR STORE TO GO CRAZY!
Now you have the chance to go crazy in one of our stores and take everything you want for 10 minutes!
To join you have to:
1. Like the picture
2. Comment “crazy”
2. Share the picture
4. Join here – link removed
We will announce the winners the 18th of June!
Good luck
Like-farming posts are posts designed to go viral and accumulate likes for the page that made the post, all accomplished through some type of deception or exploitation. The deception here is that the competition to “go crazy” in a JB Hi-Fi store isn’t a real competition but a ruse used to bait people into sharing the post.
JB Hi-Fi soon confirmed via their own official Facebook page that the offer was not real.
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As JB Hi-Fi rightfully point out, you can tell if a Facebook post was made by the official page of a big brand by looking out for the blue verification tick by the Facebook page name. If there is no blue tick, the Facebook page is likely a clone trying to pose as a big brand, and should not be trusted.
You can also detect a like-farming page if they ask you to share an image to your own timeline, since this is against Facebook’s terms of service regarding promotions.
Also, always check the history of a Facebook page making these sorts of posts. Like-farming pages tend not to have much of a history since they are usually newly created pages.
We’ve been warning of these types of scams for a long time and people continue to fall for them “just in case” they’re true. However these scams often lead to victims being targeted with excessive spam and even identity theft. Do not share these links on your own timeline as you are only putting your own friends at risk of the same scam, and remember to delete them if you do fall for this scam.
You can read more about competition giveaway scams on Facebook by reading our posts here.
