Did that title catch your attention? If you’ve been on Facebook for at least 40 minutes, you’ve probably seen a post with an amazing giveaway like that. In case you were wondering, yes they are a scam. In fact, Facebook is full of scams and misinformation.
Facebook, and social media in general, can be a wonderful tool. They allow you to connect with old classmates and stay in touch with long distance friends and family. They allow you to share the exciting things in your life with others through the use of technology. Unfortunately, it also can be a tool used to mislead or take advantage of people. The good news is there are steps you can take to keep yourself and others safe.
Is this real?
When different news stations offer contradictory “facts” it can feel like there is no way to tell fact from fiction. That may be true with some issues, but there are other things on social media that you can easily discern the truth and avoid scams. Let’s start with giveaways. There are some legitimate giveaways done on facebook. A small business may offer a gift card to someone once they reach a certain number of likes. A radio station may give away concert tickets to one lucky winner who shares their post. But other times a giveaway may be a complete scam. If you’re unsure whether a giveaway is legit or not, consider the following:
Spotting scams a mile away
- Visit the page doing the giveaway and look for red flags. If the page has never posted anything prior to the giveaway, it is a scam.
- If the page is for a random product rather than a company, it is a scam. For example, Toyota (the company) has a facebook page but Highlander (the product) does not. Apple (the company) has a facebook page but iPhone (the product) does not. You’ll find that more often than not, it is a product doing a giveaway which is typically a red flag.
- Put yourself in their shoes. The old saying is true, “there is no such thing as free lunch”. If they’re doing a giveaway in exchange for likes, they are probably trying to grow their customer base on facebook. If they’re doing a giveaway in exchange for your email, they probably want to use that email for marketing purposes. There is nothing evil about that, it’s a calculated risk you must decide if you want to take. But if you struggle to think of the benefit for them, odds are it’s a scam.
Why does any of this matter? For starters, your friends probably won’t appreciate their feed cluttered with scams. But it matters to you too. Those pages may edit their names, posts, and more after the fact. Later on you’ll find yourself wondering why you “like” these random pages when you don’t even know what they are.
Bonus tip
Most of this blog post has been about fake giveaways, but there are other posts that go viral you should watch out for too.
- The obsolete post. Facebook is a great tool for finding lost pets or helping track down missing people, but before you share make sure to check the date of the post. I’ve seen people share these types of posts that are 8 years old! Granted, in some scenarios they may still be valid, but checking the date and reading some of the comments can save you the embarrassment of sharing irrelevant posts.
- What’s your movie star name? You see these posts all the time: “your mother’s maiden name plus the city you grew up in is your movie star name”. Seems innocent, right? Wrong. Some of these may be innocent, but remember the last time you set up an online account for something? You created a password, and you also answered some secret questions to help recover your password. Random trivia such as mother’s maiden name, pet’s name, teachers name, and more are constantly used in these types of posts to help attackers obtain personal information. If you think your movie star name according to the post is hilarious, share it with your spouse at the dinner table, but keep it off of Facebook. Keep yourself safe.
A snarky lighthearted approach to avoiding scams and nonsense
I’ve shared this image on my own facebook before and it cracks me up every time. It’s a little sarcastic, but I think it gets to the point what I shared above in a concise manner.
