When an offer seems too good to be true, it often is.
We noticed on Facebook a meme that’s flying around the local Detroit community (pardon the pun) about free Delta tickets and $5,000 cash if you participate online as they say. As Detroit Metropolitan Airport is a major Delta hub, it’s definitely gaining traction.
Unfortunately, it’s fake, another scam to get likes and get attention to then probably spam you later.
Here’s the text of a post shared more than 87,000 times in just five hours:
Delta is celebrating being named the #1 Airline in the United States by giving away over 900 Round Trip First Class airline tickets to anywhere in the world and $5,000 cash to each winner! So celebrate with us and follow the rules below to win!
1. Share & Like this photo then Comment “Love Delta”
2. Like our page.
Winners will be announced on August 23 2016 Via our Fanpage
Look, everyone loves free stuff. But contests on Facebook you should be a little wary of, especially if the offer is insanely good.
@Eaton_Beaver This is not us. *NG
— Delta (@Delta) August 22, 2016
If you were to click through to the non-official group page, you would find only two posts, the about page is basically empty. There’s not even a link to the Delta website. Nothing like the many posts and active comments on the official Facebook page, that has close to 1.7 million likes.
Why would the people behind fake Delta do this? Well, to get at you with ads or spam later on (now that you’ve “liked” and “shared” them, you’ve told Facebook you’re interested in their stuff) and/or they will take the likes they amass and sell them for something like a ten cents apiece.
Let’s just say that marketers are out there with a bit of money looking to take these popular Facebook pages off of the creator’s hands for around $1,000 per 100,000 follower Facebook page.
This stinks in multiple ways. You’re getting scammed as you will not getting tickets or cash, and Delta is getting their brand hurt with tens of thousands (if not more) people who think Delta is doing something it’s not.
The timing for success for the spammer is perfect, as Delta has been in the news for computer outages and it would make sense it would make amends on a large scale.
However, as often on Facebook, facts don’t win out in the sharing and attention game.
When it comes to this fake contest, the only ride that’s going to happen is the free ride these unscrupulous spammers will receive off of your information.