A Facebook post, commented on more than 344,000 times, offers social media users the chance to win a holiday for a family of four to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, if they comment “done” under the post.
There are clear indications that this is a scam, and it is near-identical to a post we have recently checked about a competition for a holiday to Santorini, Greece.
The Facebook page, named Discover Cabo, San Lucas, has only one publicly-available post and no links to a website or other social media accounts associated with the purported business. The “about” section of the Facebook page also appears out-of-date, stating: “Come and discover Cabo, San Lucas with us in 2021.”
When a Facebook user 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 summer holiday” after entering personal information.
On this page it claims the participant can win a summer holiday “worth £900”, rather than specifying the winners will receive a holiday for four to Cabo San Lucas for seven nights, as initially advertised.
Also, given this is expressed in pounds sterling, it appears the promotion is advertised to a British audience, and it’s implausible that £900 would be enough to send a British family of four to Cabo San Lucas for a week’s holiday. According to travel site Kayak, the cheapest time to travel from the UK to Cabo San Lucas is September, with flights and accommodation for three nights costing £504 for just two people. The same package in May would cost £859.
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.
Apparent scams such as these are very common on social media, and we have written about similar posts in the past. Fact checkers such as Snopes and Truth or Fiction, have investigated similar posts in the past and found them to be scams.
It’s difficult to definitively say 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.
Photo courtesy of John Cafazza, via Unsplash.