How to Spot Facebook Giveaway Scams

When HGTV's Property Brothers contacted Juanita Molinar to tell her she'd won a prize, she was excited. Ecstatic. Over the moon... until she noticed that things weren't quite adding up. After doing some research, she realized that she'd nearly fallen for a scam Facebook page, a nefarious type of Facebook giveaway scam.

If you're not careful, you could fall prey to a similar scam. So before you answer a win notification on Facebook, be sure to know what Facebook scam pages look like and how to avoid them.

How a Facebook Giveaway Scam Works

Juanita Molinar is a Property Brothers fan, so she followed the show's page on Facebook. She was thrilled and surprised when one of the show's stars, Drew Scott, started to send her private messages. He asked her some questions, then told her she'd won $25,000 from the Dream it, Win it, Live it Sweepstakes.

Molinar soon began to feel that something wasn't right: Her so-called win had some of the warning signs of sweepstakes scams.

One of the things that made her worry was that the person calling himself "Drew Scott" was asking her to make a purchase before receiving her prize.

When she investigated, she discovered that the profile that had contacted her did not belong to Drew Scott at all. She was being scammed.

Molinar wasn't the only person who was targeted by this sweepstakes scam. Renee Carr had a similar experience, and luckily also realized she was being scammed in time to protect herself.

When the Property Brothers found out what was happening, they made an official statement about the scam on Facebook.

This doesn't mean that Property Brothers did anything wrong. It's just one example of the many times that scammers have spoofed the Facebook pages of legitimate companies to try to trick innocent fans into trusting them and sending them money or other sensitive information.

How Scammers Use Fake Facebook Pages

To seem legitimate, scammers create fake pages to use for Facebook giveaway scams. It's usually a page that looks like it belongs to someone you'd trust: a big company like Publishers Clearing House or a famous person like a popular celebrity. In this case, they used a well-known HGTV star.

These pages look legitimate and trustworthy. Scammers steal logos, photographs, and other graphics to make the page look like it belongs to the person or company they're imitating.

Because no one would believe in an HGTV page that has no followers, they build up their numbers by placing Facebook ads, creating other fake accounts to give their fake pages lots of "likes", offering incentives like Facebook quizzes or small giveaways to get people to like the page, and other tricks.

Once a significant amount of real people follow the fake page, they contact those followers to tell them they've won a prize.

Who wouldn't be tempted to give up personal information or money to get that big prize they've been dreaming of? But they are actually attempting to convince their targets to hand over money or information that they can use for identity fraud.

So how can you tell the difference between a legitimate prize win and a Facebook giveaway scam? Here are a few ways to spot a Facebook scam:

1) Learn the Red Flags of a Scam

Start by knowing the signs of a sweepstakes scam. Facebook page scams will contain many of these red flags. For example, look out for poor grammar and spelling that you'd never expect on a professional site, along with requests for money or for other personal information. Stay clear of any win notices that include these red flags!

2) Check Whether the Facebook Page Is Verified

Facebook verifies the identities of organizations and celebrities that are likely to be faked. Pages that Facebook has verified, like the White House's Facebook page, have a blue check mark next to their name on their profiles. You can be confident that verified pages are legitimate.

Note, however, that not every legitimate page has been verified. Currently, companies cannot request that Facebook verify their pages. You won't find that blue check mark on the legitimate pages of many large and legitimate websites because Facebook hasn't verified them yet.

3) Check the Company's Website for Legit Facebook Pages

If you want to find the legitimate Facebook page of your favorite companies, start with their websites rather than a Facebook search. If you follow a link from the company's site, you can be confident that they endorse that page.

4) Be Wary of Friend Requests From Celebrities

It might be flattering to think that your favorite television and movie stars are trying to be your Facebook friends — but remember, there are millions of people on Facebook. Unless you happen to have a personal relationship with a celebrity, it's unlikely that they're asking to be your Facebook friend.

PCH repeatedly reminds the public that they do not send friend requests: "Fact: No member of the Prize Patrol will send you a friend request on Facebook". And they only have one official page. Their Prize Patrol members no longer have individual pages, to make imitating them harder for scammers.

Other Signs That Something Is Off

Celebrities and big companies usually have tons of followers and a page full of interesting posts about topics that are important to them. So if the page was founded recently, has few if any recent posts, has bad spelling or grammar, has a low number of followers who don't interact with the page much, or makes posts that don't seem to fit the goals and reputation of the company posting them, proceed with caution.

By following these tips, you can avoid the risks and disappointment of falling for a Facebook giveaway scam.