At the end of the year, everyone’s just itching to go shopping, and what better way to do that but with free money. Except it’s not really free, and you’re just being scammed on your Facebook account.
At least two new scams are currently in circulation, tempting Facebook users with the hint of free $150 and $200 vouchers for use at both Westfield and JB HiFi.
Of course, neither of these are real – merely scams – often asking you to fill out a survey that the creator will get paid for. Meanwhile, your Facebook profile is temporarily hijacked and you’ll automatically share the scam post, increasing the likelihood that your friends will click the scam link.
“If you hover your mouse over the top (before clicking), you might find the links actually go somewhere else,” said Michael McKinnon, Security Advisor as AVG Australia and New Zealand. “It is vital that you understand this concept so that you can always double-check the link you’re about to click on.”
In the case of the “free gift voucher” scam, hovering over it told us to go to “freewestfieldgifts.com”, a site that obviously isn’t part of the Westfield website.
In fact, that’s one thing you can do to make sure you don’t get caught:
If there’s a hint of a promotion, don’t just assume it’s good; instead, head to the website of the company to see if the promotion is real. If they don’t have anything in big bright letters about it, chances are that it’s fake.
For these so-called promotions, neither JB HiFi nor Westfield list anything, telling us how fake these are.
UPDATE: The government’s SCAMwatch webpage has been updated with information on the scam.
From what we’re seeing, it’s also now affecting American Facebook users too with advertising of free Starbucks cards.Â
Probably a good idea to remember that if you see a hint of a free gift card from a big company on Facebook, it’s more than likely going to be a scam.Â