Scam “like-farming” Facebook post claims to offer free house or £150,000

A Facebook post claiming to offer either a brand new home or £150,000 cash for liking, sharing and commenting on it is spreading on social media. It has been posted by a page called Robertson Estate & Property Management.

SCAM

It’s a like-farming scam, and contains all the hallmarks of a classic fake competition like-farming scam that we’re pointing out on a weekly basis. Those who like and comment on the post are likely to be targeted by spammers and scammers, and will also be messaged to the page and ushered to spammy marketing websites that harvest personal information to spam people.

The post is below

Like-farming is the process where spammers try and lure users into engaging with a post on social media using exploitation or deception. And since there is no free house on offer here, in this case it is deception.

Firstly, there is no company called Robertson Estate & Property Management (there is a Robertson Property Management but this company has different branding than the one seen on the Facebook page. They also have their own Facebook page.)

Secondly, a reverse image search on the house apparently on offer reveals that house is actually being sold by David Wilson Homes, and isn’t a part of any social media competition.


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And thirdly, the Facebook page that posted it was only created a handful of days ago, which can be seen by looking at Facebook’s handy Page Transparency Tool.

Those who interact with the Facebook page are actively being targeted by spammers who reply to comments trying to lure Facebook users into accepting friend requests from strangers. This will likely lead to romance scams.

The page will also message those who comment on the post and attempt to try and lure them to spammy marketing websites in order to “claim their entry”. However these sites harvest user information and spam them.

Don’t engage with these types of Facebook posts.

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