Everyone loves to win something free, and what could be better than a free trip to Walt Disney World ? There isn’t a lot, but those kinds of contests and giveaways don’t happen all the time. Unfortunately, many on Facebook are trying to scam people into believing that they could win a free Disney vacation, and people just won’t stop believing it.
You may see a lot of your friends on Facebook sharing posts that state you can win a Walt Disney World vacation by sharing, liking, and commenting. What they don’t realize is that most of the time, this isn’t really The Disney Company putting on these so-called contests.
These pages are looking for you to share their posts so they can get access to you, your friends, and your family’s information.
On the scam pages, they will tell you they’re giving away bags like those you see above or have so many free tickets to give away. Some even show pictures such as this one.
Those are Key To The World cards, which Disney used to use as the primary source of everything. They would open your hotel door, get you into the theme parks, get your dining, and to purchase things.
Even though the date says 2010 and Disney has since mostly replaced them with MagicBands , people still fall for it. Let’s not forget the cards show that you could win a trip to Walt Disney World that is five years long.
The thing with these Facebook scams is that they’re actually very hard to search for on the site. They rely on one person finding it, sharing it, and then having others share it too. With more attention coming their way, they’re more likely to show up in everyone’s news feeds.
At this point, they get more and more people on to their page and can rely on clicks to spread malware and other information-stealing programs. Simple enough.
Here are some things to look for on Facebook to figure out if the contest is legit or not.
- Simply look at the name of the company — Chances are that a hyphen or period or exclamation point or some other type of punctuation that shouldn’t be there has been added in.
- Look for the verified blue check mark on all official Disney social media sites.
- Check the actual name of the page and the URL – Usually there are misspellings or added punctuation since they are not “official.”
- Look at the date founded for the page. Typically, it’s within the last couple of days.
- Look to see if the page has actually posted anything else at all. If they haven’t, it’s a fake.
- Check to see the contest rules. If they don’t have any, it’s a fake.
- Ask yourself, is The Walt Disney Company actually sponsoring this giveaway? If not, then there is a 99.99% chance that it is a scam. You will know if Disney is behind it because there will be all kinds of rules, regulations, and disclaimers.
A lot of these sites will have names such as “Walt Disney World.” or “WaltDisney-World” or even “Walt Disney Land.” The Facebook scam pages know they can’t use the actual name, but they will steal some of the profile pics and cover photos from the official pages to make them seem more believable.
When The Disney Company puts on a contest, there will be official rules and are usually direct from the company or an affiliate like Joffrey’s Coffee.
Don’t blindly share something on Facebook just because you think that you’ll possibly win a free trip to Walt Disney World or Disneyland or a Disney Cruise . These Facebook scams are all over the place and more pop up daily. Don’t fall for them and don’t let others fall for them either.
[Images via Facebook]