Category: Scam News

Fake Giveaway: What it is and how can you spot it

The technologically paced world has surely helped us in a lot of ways. With almost everything available at our fingertips ranging from money transactions to the other of the world to buying groceries, almost everything is easily available and accessible if you have a device and an internet connection. With the internet, came a rise of various career options. Now, these career options or profiles completely depended on the social media world that almost everyone is a part of now. From modeling to social media influencers, people find a gazillion ways to earn an income with the help of social media. Along with the careers also came the greed of growing followers and this proceeded into a situation where people willingly spent lakhs of money to buy fake followers. This greed of being validated and having more followers than others have grown to a level that scammers and cybercriminals are using this motive for their benefit and stealing people’s money through deceit. One of the ways through which these scammers and cybercriminals do that is known as a fake giveaway.  

From the fear of the covid-19 virus to the sudden fall in the economy, and the rising threat i=of unemployment in many countries around the world, you must be thinking what else can go wrong in the wake of this new decade. While many of us have lost or are at the verge of losing their only source of livelihood, opportunistic cybercriminals are waiting to fill our device with unrealistic promises and take away all our money.

What is a Fake Giveaway?

Fake giveaways are often conducted to prey on unsuspecting victims. These giveaways may ask you to share your personal information and also the liberty to post on your feed. However, one must not fall into the greed of the hoax giveaway and the prize they are offering. You should know that upon giving your social media handle’s access to someone else and your personal information as well, they will probably sell it to spammers, therefore, putting you and your close contacts at risk. You should always be careful while applying for any type of giveaway. These frauds and cybercriminals will trick you into following various fake accounts on the pretext of a guideline to enter the giveaway. Afterward, when the fake account experiences a sudden rise in the count of their followers, these frauds will sell the account to any spammer. The spammer then changes the name of the handle and continues this forward. As the members of famous social media handles such as Instagram and Facebook hold many giveaways like so, it becomes very difficult for an innocent member to differentiate a fake giveaway from that of a real one. 

Now, we are sure all of you must be thinking about how you can avoid this major scam and save your money from these fake giveaways organized by online scammers and criminals. You don’t have to worry at all for we have curated a special list especially for you on how to identify and avoid these fake giveaways and save yourself from falling into any kind of trap and losing all your money or worse, getting into a debt trap.

How to spot a Fake Giveaway?

  • The giveaway is being conducted under a famous brand name yet the profile is not verified. 

More often than usual, you might have noticed pages on Instagram which claim to be a famous fashion or any other brand. However, despite being so famous, these pages won’t be having the verification symbol that it the blue tick beside their username. Now the main reason behind this is that the page you are on is not the original page of that brand. Online scammers often use this tactic to attract more followers and fool them into thinking that this is the original account of the fashion brand. One must always be sure on what pages are they following and avoid giving away their personal information the fashion brand and ask you to take part in their giveaway. These are all their ways to convince you and we strictly recommend our readers to not fall for these blatant lies. You must always check for the source of the giveaway before investing money or personal information.

  • The account has just been created for the sole purpose of the giveaway.

Most often, while surfing through the social media handles, you may come across very exciting giveaways that may promise a ticket to some beautiful country, an iPhone, or anything of that sort. Upon visiting their page, you realize that there are no posts on this handle. Now this will strike as a huge possibility that it is the work of an online scammer or a cybercriminal. They often do this to reduce their chances of getting caught by the law authorities and also to steal as much money as they can through this one giveaway. 

Although such profiles and giveaways point towards a fake giveaway there are chances that it may be a new brand and they are just starting. We recommend our readers to always be very careful while dealing with such stuff and read the giveaway rules thoroughly. You should also check their profile information that includes a link in their bio or email address to make sure that the account is 100% legit and not just another spammer.

  • The giveaway account does not show any signs of recent activities or followers.

Giveaways are often hosted by well-established accounts to keep their followers engaged and also as a return gift for all the love they give out. These giveaways will only be conducted by those accounts that have many active followers. One day, you may find a very interesting giveaway post on your feed. Now this giveaway, like every other fake giveaway, may promise very big and expensive prizes such as an airplane ticket to some tourist destination, the latest iPhone, Polaroid camera, or anything of that type. Upon clicking on these giveaway posts or sponsored stories, you will be redirected to the host’s page. Now here is where the red flags would be visible to you as this account would not have any recent activities or followers on its handle. There is a 99.9% chance that this might be the work of an online scammer or a cybercriminal. We strictly recommend our readers to be very conscious while dealing with such pages who are pretending to be others on social media. You must make sure that you do not share any kind of personal information with these people and also do not give them access to toy our page. This will not only let them steal your information but also may cause a threat to your close friends, family, and followers as well. Even if you want to participate in any sort of giveaways, you must always check for their authenticity and then afterward, proceed to participate in these giveaways conducted by authentic social media handles.

  • The giveaway post is filled with grammar errors, translation errors, and spelling mistakes

All the well-established or growing brands will always care about the type and way of content that they post on their social media handles. They will also take into consideration, the grammatical errors or any kinds of spelling mistakes and correct them before posting it on their page. So, if you come across a giveaway post or story that contains any kinds of errors such as grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes, blurred images, or even translation errors, then there is a high probability that the giveaway that you are looking at is fake. Before participating in any sort of giveaways or investing money in them, you must always go through and read their rules, regulations, and their content on that specific giveaway. You must participate only if you are convinced that it is not a fake giveaway. 

  • Usage of stolen images or stock images in the giveaway posts or stories

If a certain person or brand is hosting or conducting a giveaway with some specific products as prizes, then the viewers would want that person or the brand to use their photos instead of photos from Google, stock images, or stolen photographs. If a certain giveaway is using stolen images to tell the followers the prizes they might get, there is a possibility that it might be fake because if they already have the prizes with them then they would use the photographs that they click to make it more convincing and authentic. 

If you see the watermark of any site or recognize that the image is not an original photograph that the person or brand has clicked on, we recommend you not to participate in a giveaway of that sort. 

To conclude this article, we request our readers to not fall for these nonsensical and unrealistic giveaways. By sharing your details and aces sot the page, you are not only putting your information at risk but also putting your close friends, family, and your followers at risk. One should always believe in real engagements and natural growth instead of these giveaways.

Add Your Heading Text Here