Melbourne,
09
July
2014
|
12:00
Australia/Melbourne

How to spot a Facebook scam

You see a post in your Facebook newsfeed that appears to be a contest or give-away from an airline - maybe even one from Jetstar. You wonder “is this real or a scam?"

The infographic above shows you some quick checks you can do to figure this out.

There are broadly two types of airline-related scams popular in Australia these days, by the way:

1. Automated phone scams

In this type of scam you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from Qantas, Jetstar, Virgin Australia or Tigerair. They tell you you’ve won a holiday, travel voucher or frequent flyer points. But, in order to claim your reward, you need to give them your name, email address and credit card number.

This scam is dangerous because, if you fall victim to it, you risk giving scammers your identity and financial information.

A lot has been written about this type of scam:

2. Facebook contest scams

In this type of scam you see a post in your Facebook newsfeed which appears to be a contest or give-away from an airline. You don’t have to do much to enter: just like and share the post.

This scam isn’t immediately dangerous but, if you do fall victim to it, what you have done is told scammers that you’re not too careful about what you read, like, and share online. This suggests you might be a good target for future, more dangerous online scams. This type of scam is known as a like-farming scam.

Not too much has been written about this type of scam, which is why we created that infographic. You can read more about it here, though:

Whenever we see this type of scam we report it immediately to Facebook. Facebook then takes about 24 hours to delete the fake page (they have their own review process to follow).

If you do see this type of scam in your newsfeed please:

Finally, we’d like to say a huge thank-you to all the people who have alerted us to scams like this in the past and will, hopefully, continue to do so in the future!

Comments 1 - 6 (6)
Thank you for your message.
Matt probin
15
June
2018
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fjetstar.com.au-promo-1.win%2F%3FqdGArHO%252F&h=AT2AYIYSRiZc2-eFIM2mxbfUFU1Lrlb7Qo96CE0vxFXygsFHyJFEHFQ0E2uo8as8LHI6Z1iiOL7GPutIcsSR3D1XjAww2ncnukAyeH_Fb57mbaDMrbTcMCC1zfnBR1pTYfjYDv5aORe1zq4
Sarah
08
February
2018
Hi, I’m getting a lot of 2 free tickets ($1000) if I fill out a survey on Facebook. The url is
http://jetstar.com.au-new-promotions-1.win/?EhHJ7iR%2F
Is this a scam or real? I would really love the free tickets!
Thanks
Ian
04
February
2018
http://jetstar.com.au-promo-offer.win/?FZurH16%2F I think they are at it again
Hieu
02
February
2018
http://jetstar.com-view-promotions.com/?d8QSxN5%2F

is this a fake email scam...
Joan Sedsman
27
January
2018
I received an email offering me an opportunity to be in the running for $1,000 worth of vouchers if I completed a survey.
The email address was contact@jehmeu.com. I assumed this was not genuine and have "unsubscribed". Was I correct?
Shanan Marsden
03
December
2017
http://lp1.want-to-win.com/nz/jflight?networkid=162&optinfo=153215744201711069&pre=1&fname=Shanan&lname&email=shanan@alliancefs.co.nz

Hi received an email today from this. Believe it is a scam?

Regards
Shanan