Apparent Facebook scam offers Santorini holiday to commenters

By | April 28, 2022

A post on Facebook, shared over 8,000 times, offers people the chance to win a week-long holiday in Santorini, Greece, if they comment the word “done” under the post. 

There are several indicators that this claim is too good to be true. 

The Facebook page, named Santorini Travel, only has one post, no links to a website, and no evidence of a business operating as a travel operator. There is a company based in Greece with the same name, but there is no indication that the Facebook page is linked with them and they do not share a logo. Full Fact approached this company for comment, but did not receive a response. 

When an individual comments on the post, the page often responds by telling them that they must “complete the validation process” by clicking a blue “sign-up” button at the top of the page. 

In this example, clicking the blue button leads to a page with the URL newsmartphoneoffer.com, offering the chance to win a holiday worth £900 rather than a trip for four to Santorini as initially advertised. 

The terms and conditions claim a prize of travel products or vouchers valued at €1000 is available, but also that the company running the competition retains the right to change or discontinue the giveaways at any time.  

We have seen, and written about, very similar posts in the past. New examples of posts falsely promising the chance to win luxurious holidays frequently appear on social media—with some even using near-identical language.

Other fact checkers, such as Snopes and Truth or Fiction, have investigated similar posts in the past and found them to be scams. 

It’s often difficult to say for sure what the purpose of these types of scams is intended to be, but they could be intended to collect personal data in order to target people with spam adverts, or as a form of “like-farming”  where administrators of a Facebook page attempt to gather a large following in order to sell it later on.

For more information about how to protect yourself from fraud, visit the Take Five campaign led by UK Finance, or the Action Fraud website.

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