GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A new scam is making the rounds on Facebook telling people that they’ve won a free 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It sounds too good to be true and Susan Bach of the Better Business Bureau says it is.
“We noticed that there has been a rise in these types of scams lately. Recognize the red flags of these scams because once you know the sign they are easy to spot.”
The BBB says there are scams for free pizza, as well as airline tickets, and it is important to know the difference between a real and fake prize.
“You never have to pay money to win a prize, so that should be the first red flag.”
Bach says it is. She says one thing to look for is that the page is verified. “You can see that by a blue checkmark next to the name.”
Newly created pages are usually scams and sometimes the page will have grammatical errors or will have names that closely resemble the real company names.
Tips for spotting fake pages/scams on Facebook:
- Is the page claiming to represent a well-known brand (Jeep, Southwest Airlines, Domino’s)? If so, check to make sure it’s a “verified” page. There should be a blue checkmark next to the name, which means that Facebook has verified that it represents who it claims to.
- Also check to see when the page was created and how many likes/followers it has. If it was just recently created and has few followers, it’s likely a scam.
- Check the name of the page closely. Scammers often use names that closely resemble the real company’s name, such as South West Airlines, instead of Southwest Airlines.
- If the page is giving away a prize, you shouldn’t have to enter your credit card number to pay for it. In the case of the Jeep giveaway page, people were asked to download a “free” app, and enter their credit card number.
- If you see a fake/scam page on Facebook, report it by clicking on the three dots at the top of the page and selecting “report page”. You can also report it to Wisconsin’s Fraud Squad — one of the BBB’s Facebook pages.
