Like and Share this post to win £1,000,000!

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a trend of new “scams” on Facebook. I’ve put that in quotes, because I can’t really see how the “scammer” benefits other than getting more likes and shares on their Facebook pages, but maybe there is some nasty data-sharing going on that I’m not aware of.

Each one has a similar setup – a picture is uploaded advertising a new piece of technology, with some cockamamie excuse as to why said technology is being given away. The ones I’ve seen recently have included Apple iPhones, iPads and MacBook laptops – apparently being given away by Apple because “they’re old stock and we need to get rid of them”, or “the box has been opened so we can’t sell them.”

All you have to do to be in with a chance of getting one of them is like their page and share their photo.

They look like this (another one that I noticed this morning)

There are a number of things wrong with this, not least the fact that the Xbox 720 hasn’t officially been announced yet, so it’s a bit of a stretch to think that they’ve already decided on a public testing programme for it, or indeed that they would refer to the new console as the “Xbox 720” on their own Facebook pages, as this would surely lead people to believe that was the official name.

And – of course – there’s the claim that after you’ve finished testing the console (although how you establish that you’ve finished testing it is anyone’s guess) you get to keep it. That’s very generous of Microsoft, isn’t it? Allowing development versions of an unreleased console to remain in the public domain, I mean – it’s not as if such a device could potentially be used by ne’er-do-wells to discover security flaws in the system, is it?

The biggest thing wrong with all of these though, is that the companies running them (Microsoft, Apple etc.) are apparently not as popular as they used to be. Here, have a look at what I mean:

Only 37,130 likes? For a service that is used by millions? Either they have a shocking customer satisfaction ratio, or this isn’t the official Xbox Live Facebook page.

The Apple ones were similar – a global corporation, with an army of almost cult-like zealots pandering to their every whim, probably also numbering in the millions, and the Facebook pages offering these free-to-a-random-home products had something like 25,000 likes.

I don’t understand how people fall for it – and yes, I realise the slight irony here given that I “fell for” the DeLorean leasing advert mentioned in my previous post.

UPDATE: A couple of hours after I posted this, one of the Apple related ones resurfaced:

There’s a relatively good rule to live by when surfing the Internet: “If something looks too good to be true, it is.”

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5 Comments

  1. I read that Facebook were changing their terms and conditions to make “Like this” style competitions against the rules, so this sort of thing should be able to be reported to be taken down.

  2. Duds

    The Apple one is especially fun given they apparently can’t sell non-shrinkwrapped ones, despite the fact they have an entire very popular refurb store for doing just that.

  3. Hah, yes – I forgot about that particular element of the Apple one. “Oh no, this product isn’t shrinkwrapped – let’s give it away and waste hundreds of dollars, rather than using the shrinkwrapping machine to re-wrap it at a cost of a couple of cents.”

  4. hazel rigazio

    do you know it’s not just this type of con getmeaticket.co.uk ,activeyou.co.uk,womans own,woman, all have blag spam competitions.

  5. Jasper

    Here’s a clue: “…unsealed iPad’s” – there’s an apostrophe in there that doesn’t belong. Apple’s front office probably employs people who can punctuate English correctly.

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