Scammers send mass-emails, request recipients to participate in a survey, and promise a gift card in return. The crooks pose as retail chains or fast food restaurants and use the real logos to make it seem legitimate.
Participants who respond and enter personal information often find that, instead of receiving a gift card, they receive calls from telemarketers. Through the survey, the scammers attain participants’ email addresses, phone numbers and home addresses.
The worst comes not when your personal info is sold to telemarketers, but when your identity is stolen.
The other variation of this fraud is the "Facebook free gift card" scam. The crooks ask you to fill a survey in order to get the card, as well as clicking the "Like" button. Filling the form and sending it over provides the scammers access to your personal information, including passwords and bank accounts.
Amongst the "Fabeook/Twitter free gift card" scams found on the social networking websites are big brand names used by the crooks. Below there is a list with such fake offers posted by scammers:
"$1,000 Victoria's Secret gift card" scam
"$500 Costco free gift card" scam
"$100 Applebee's free gift card" scam
"1 free Walgreen gift card" scam
"One free Amazon.com gift card" scam
"Boots $50 voucher giveaway" scam
"Free $1,000 Walmart gift card survey" scam
"Free £170 worth of Tesco vouchers" scam
"Eat for free at Cheescake factory" scam
"Free £500 Argos gift cards for Christmas" scam
"Eat for free at Pizza Hut" scam
"Free Starbucks $50 gift card" scam
"Free $25 Tim Hortons gift card" scam
How to avoid: people love freebies and that’s exactly what scammers use as bait to get your info. One rule of thumb: free gift cards on Internet are never free. Get them through legitimate websites, but first find out if the website is authentic and not cloned. And Facebook or Twitter free gift cards? Hmmm...no. Get that out of your head.
