According to a post currently hitting Facebook News Feeds, US home improvement store chain Lowe’s is giving everyone who shares a link a coupon worth $150.
Supposedly, the giveaway is to celebrate the company’s anniversary.
The post features the Lowe’s logo along with an image supposedly depicting one of the $150 coupons. However, the post is fraudulent and has no connection to Lowe’s. No amount of sharing will get you one of the promised coupons. In fact, no coupons are being given away at all.
The post is a typical Facebook giveaway scam designed to trick you into giving your personal details to dodgy “survey” and “offer” websites.
If you click the post, you will be taken to a website that supposedly allows you to claim your voucher. You will be first asked to answer a few questions about your previous experience with Lowe’s. The site will then pretend to check your answers and then announce you as a winner. In fact, all visitors are told that they have won, regardless of which answers they provide.
Next, you will be prompted to click a button to share the page on Facebook. This ensures that the scam post continues to spread, gaining many new victims as it travels across the network.
After sharing, you will be instructed to click a button labelled ‘Receive the Voucher”. But, instead of being taken to a page where you can claim your coupon, you will instead be taken to a suspect website that promises the chance to win further prizes in exchange for entering your name and contact details.
The site will share your information with marketing companies who will inundate you with unwanted phone calls, emails, and text messages promoting various dodgy products and services.
And, even after sharing on Facebook and providing your details on one of the linked websites, you will still not get to claim your $150 Lowe’s coupon. There ARE no coupons.
Anniversary giveaway scams like this are very common on Facebook.
A screenshot of the scam post:
Transcript:
Lowes has announced that everyone who shares this link will be sent a $150 coupon for its anniversary. TODAY ONLY.
A screenshot of the scam website:
Importance Notice
After considerable thought and with an ache in my heart, I have decided that the time has come to close down the Hoax-Slayer website.These days, the site does not generate enough revenue to cover expenses, and I do not have the financial resources to sustain it going forward.
Moreover, I now work long hours in a full-time and physically taxing job, so maintaining and managing the website and publishing new material has become difficult for me.
And finally, after 18 years of writing about scams and hoaxes, I feel that it is time for me to take my fingers off the keyboard and focus on other projects and pastimes.
When I first started Hoax-Slayer, I never dreamed that I would still be working on the project all these years later or that it would become such an important part of my life. It's been a fantastic and engaging experience and one that I will always treasure.
I hope that my work over the years has helped to make the Internet a little safer and thwarted the activities of at least a few scammers and malicious pranksters.
A Big Thank You
I would also like to thank all of those wonderful people who have supported the project by sharing information from the site, contributing examples of scams and hoaxes, offering suggestions, donating funds, or helping behind the scenes.I would especially like to thank David White for his tireless contribution to the Hoax-Slayer Facebook Page over many years. David's support has been invaluable, and I can not thank him enough.
Closing Date
Hoax-Slayer will still be around for a few weeks while I wind things down. The site will go offline on May 31, 2021. While I will not be publishing any new posts, you can still access existing material on the site until the date of closure.Thank you, one and all!
Brett Christensen,
Hoax-Slayer
