Thousands of Facebook users have been duped by a competition promoted by a fake page for an Australian airline, promising 40 winners free airfares and five-star accommodation for two weeks in Fiji, with 4,500 Australian dollars spending money.
To enter, the page claimed, all users had to do was like and share the photo posted on the page.
An Australian newspaper said the ploy worked, with the page receiving more than 14,000 ‘likes’ from Facebook users in less than 24 hours.
The newspaper said telltale signs the page was fake failed to deter thousands of hopefuls. Firstly, the page contained no other content beyond the competition.
Secondly, the competition, which in spending money alone would cost the airline $180,000, on top of the airfare and accommodation costs, is simply too good to be true.
In a statement, Jetstar said no major Australian airline has been immune from these types of scams and it was expected this type of behaviour would continue.
The purpose of these fake pages is typically to engage in ‘like farming’ according to scam watchdog site Hoax-slayer.com.
"The intention of these scammer like-farmers is to increase the value of the bogus Facebook Pages they create so that they can be sold on the black market to other scammers and/or used to market dubious products and services and distribute further scams.
