A post offering a free holiday to Santorini in Greece is being widely shared on Facebook, but appears unlikely to be genuine.
The post from an account called Santorini Travel says: “We’re going to celebrate our grand opening by doing something special for you. We will be rewarding someone who has shared then commented by February 13th with a 10 night stay for 2 people in a 4* all inclusive hotel. Don’t worry about flights and transfers, it’s all included. You will have 2 years to use the holiday.”
These words are almost identical to those used in a previous Santorini scam, which was covered by the US fact checker Snopes in 2019. The fact checker Truth or Fiction has also exposed similar scams in the past.
This scam could be an example of ‘like-farming’, where administrators of a Facebook page attempt to gather a large following in order to sell it later on. Many people who reply to the post have received responses asking them to share the post to eight active groups.
Clues that the most recent post cannot be trusted include the fact that neither it nor the Santorini Travel page names either the hotel or the company behind it. There are no contact details on the page, and the post about the free holiday is its only post.
We have found many scams on Facebook in the past, claiming to offer free TVs or chocolate hampers.
The Take Five campaign led by UK Finance gives advice on how to protect yourself from online fraud while Action Fraud provides examples of current scams to be on alert for.
Photo by Heidi Kaden on Unsplash