G'day Compers! I don't mean to alarm you but scammers are targetting us! Yes, that's right, us... compers, sweepstakers, competition nuts. Please spend five minutes or so to read through this page so that you don't fall for one of the many scams out there that are not only annoying but can be quite dangerous too.

SOCIAL MEDIA COMP SCAMS

With so many competitions and giveaways popping up on social media every day, that are being entered by such a huge pool of social media users, it's little wonder scammers are targetting entrants of these comps. Unfortunately, people keep falling for these scams too so, while there are profits to me made, the scammers just move from one scam to the next using the same tactics each time to dupe more innocent, and often gullible, people.

To compound the problem is that Facebook/Instagram administrators and moderators do not seem to care about this issue and do very little to stop these scams before people lose their money or personal details. It's quite ironic that if you report a fake Facebook page you will usually receive a copy & paste response saying that the fake page doesn't go against their Community Standards. Yet, if you check FB's Community Standards page one of the first points they make is 'Authenticity'. In fact, it states "Authenticity: We want to make sure that the content people are seeing on Facebook is authentic" and "...we don't want people using Facebook to misrepresent who they are or what they're doing". So according to the peanuts that run Facebook, a fake business page is apparently authentic!

HOW THE SCAMMERS TARGET COMPERS

Scammers simply troll through social media platforms to find giveaways and then set up a cloned page that imitates the genuine business running the giveaway. Once setup they simply go back to the genuine comp post and start sending messages, friend requests or post share replies (see below) to people who entered the comp by liking, commenting on or sharing the post.

The scammer's cloned/fake page will usually have a very similar name to that of the comp promoter's page. For example, a scammer cloning AussieComps.com might call their fake page AuusieComps.com or Aussie-Comps.com which, as you can see, one has a minor difference in the spelling and the other an added '-' character between the words. The cloned page name will always be very minor and purposely designed to trick people who are quickly skimming through their social news feeds or messages. The @page name of a cloned business pages will also be different to the genuine business page eg. @AussieComps.com would be the genuine @name, while a fake page's @name could be something like @Aussie-Comps.com or @random-123abc or @the-scammers-actual-name (yes they are that stupid) or even just a generic Facebook profile ID (like facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890).

These cloned business pages are similar in nature to the old Facebook personal account clones that thankfully don't happen too often these days. Those scams would copy a person's personal Facebook account and then impersonate that person to people on their friend's list. The common scams used with these cloned accounts would be a personal message sent to you from 'your friend' saying they were stuck in Africa and needed money for a flight home or they had been arrested in Indonesia and needed urgent bail money or some other usually ludicrous reason they needed funds transferred quickly via Western Union.

COMMON SOCIAL MEDIA SCAMS

THE SCAM #1:
You recieve a personal message (PM) on Facebook, a Direct message (DM) on Instagram, or similar communications on other platforms, that appears to be from a legitimate business page that you recently entered a giveaway on by liking or commenting on the giveaway post. The message will state that you have won a prize and to claim the prize you must complete one or a number of the following actions:

    a) Click on a link which will take you to a survey (where the scammer gets a referral payment for your view or actions).
    b) Click on a link which will take you to a page requesting credit card details for postage fees, processing fees or some other reason.
    c) Like their fake business page, which is actually a personal account, which allows the scammer access to your email address and some personal details to use in future scams.

THE SCAM #2:
Similar to the giveaway scam above, you recieve a personal message (PM) on Facebook, a Direct message (DM) on Instagram etc. that appears to be from a legitimate business page that you recently interacted on one of their posts by liking or commenting (NOT a giveaway post). The message will be the similar to the giveaway scam where they state that you have won a prize for being a loyal follower or because it's their birthday or because their favourite chicken laid an egg or some other stupid reason to awarded prizes to random people. As with the giveaway scam, you will be asked to complete one or a number of dodgy actions to claim the prize.

THE SCAM #3:
You receive a Facebook Friend Request or start being followed on Instagram by a business page that you recently entered a giveaway on. On Facebook, these are actually fake personal pages as FB business pages cannot send friend requests - they can only ask you to like or follow them. If you accept the friend request or follow back you will usually be directed to a link or asked to perform one of the actions listed in the papragraph above.

THE SCAM #4:
You receive a reply to a giveaway 'share' that you posted or shared on your own social media page, wall or story. The reply will usually say something like "Congratulations, you have won. Visit my profile for details". Of course their profile will be a fake business page where a post (usually pinned to the top of their fake page) will tell you to click a link to claim your prize. These links usually lead to a survey site, a bogus movie streaming service, pornography sites or other websites where the scammer earns money and you get nothing. Worse still, the dodgy site could infect your PC or device with a virus or ransomware or may even try to steal your personal data by installing malware on your system.

THE SCAM #5:
Fake giveaways. Luckily these are quite rare these days but they do still occassionally appear on social media. If a comp looks too good to be true, especially from an unheard of entity or brand new social media page, either do some research into the comp promoter (Google is your friend), check if it is listed on AussieComps.com or avoid it all together.

If you do encounter any of these scams listed above, DO NOT ACCEPT ANY FRIEND OR FOLLOW REQUESTS OR CLICK ANY LINKS FROM SUSPICIOUS PAGES OR PEOPLE. Also report them to the social media platform and then block them. Although Facebook/Instagram don't really care about fake pages and profiles, if enough reports come in about the same scammer they may be forced to do something.

TIPS TO AVOID BEING COMP SCAMMED

• Scammers often use poor spelling and grammar due to usually being from overseas and/or non-native English speakers.
• Do not accept friend requests from supposed 'business' pages. Facebook business pages cannot send friend requests - they can only ask you to like or follow them. Genuine Instagram business pages will, of course, be public for everyone to see and interact with the business. Fake IG pages are always set to private!
• Genuine businesses will only ever have ONE business page per social media platform. I have, however, seen a few businesses on Instagram set up a second temporary page for their giveaway/s which is a terrible idea as it blurs the lines between real and fake pages!
• Fake/cloned social media pages only include between one and twenty copied posts and images from the genuine page which will have only been posted in the previous few hours or days and will have very few, if any, likes and comments on them. Genuine comp promoters will have always been online much, much longer and their posts will have likes and comments.
• As mentioned above, the scammer’s page name and/or @name will not match the genuine business profile.
• On social media, genuine comp promoters will not ask for any personal information unless you have actually won a prize. On website entry forms you may be required to provide extra personal details so be sure you can trust the business before entering these comps.
• Genuine comp promoters will not ask for any payment or credit card info on social media or their websites. Occasionally, winners will need to pay for postage of a prize but this should be made clear on the comp's entry page or terms and conditions.
• Comp promoters NEVER ask for any processing fees to claim a prize.
• Comp promoters NEVER have winner/s complete other actions (complete a survey, watch a movie etc.) to claim a prize.
• Check whether the actual comp has been drawn yet - some will still be running, others will already have the winner/s published by the comp promoter!
• If you are concerned about whether a business' Facebook or Instagram page is genuine, Google their website and then find the links to their socials (usually somewhere on their homepage). Click the link from their website and compare it to the link of the page you are concerned about. You can also email the comp promoter via their website or PM/DM them via their genuine social media page to check the legitamcy of their page and/or the giveaway.
• Comp promoters usually (but unfortunately not always) have terms and conditions for their competitions & giveaways. If available, READ THEM...
• If you are still having problems identifying whether a comp is legitimate, feel free to email me (Scott) at and I will look into the comp for you.

And remember, every comp listed on AussieComps.com has had the terms and conditions thoroughly checked before being listed because my friends, family and I don't want to be scammed either. Any comps that I feel are a little dodgy or the terms are deceptive I do not list - simple as that! Plus I have a list of over 70 businesses that I will no longer post their giveaways on AussieComps.com due to many scamming and spamming factors that I have found over the past 15 years of comping. Things such as awarding prizes to people who didn't enter, not awarding prizes at all, changing the comp's terms after the giveaway has ended, sending excessive marketing emails to comp entrants, telephone spammers and a number of other reasons will get a comp promoter added to the list.

~ Scott
June 2021