Here’s a hint: Sharing a photo is not a valid way to enter a sweepstakes where the prize has a value worth more than few bucks, and no multibillion-dollar international airline is going to run a contest that way. And yet, in just a few hours more than 40,000 Facebook users have shared an obviously bogus sweepstakes from a page pretending to be United Airlines.
“In celebration of United’s recent announcement that it will be moving all its flights from New York (JFK) over to Newark. We are giving away 100 United Airlines tickets that can be used anywhere United flies,” reads the photo caption.
And even though the law requires that a sweepstakes of such value would have all sorts of conditions regarding age, country and state of residence, affiliation with the airline, transferability, and other fine print, all you apparently have to do to enter is
“1. SHARE this photo!
2. Like This Page
3. Comment Thank You.”
We’re not sure if #3 is actually suggesting that people write “Thank You” in the comments or if it’s just saying “Thank you” for being a sucker, but there are thousands of comments on the photo repeating “Thank you.”
Step #2 is really the important part of the “likebait” scam. It convinces hordes of users to like a page that the creator then hopes to flip for money to some other sketchy business looking to purchase a Facebook community with a built-in number of followers.
Aside from the lack of any fine print, another huge hint that this isn’t a legitimate giveaway from United Airlines is that the page posting the photos isn’t the United Airlines Facebook page.
The actual airline has a page on the site with around 800,000 followers and a big blue “verified” check mark:
The fake United uses the same artwork, but no verified mark, writes the name as “United Airlines.” (note the period), and only one post in its timeline — the fake sweepstakes photo.
We’ve reached out to the real United Airlines (we hope) for comment and will update if the airline replies.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist