Friday, November 11, 2011

Look! It's a bird, it's a Southwest Airlines plane! No! It's a Facebook Scaaaaam!

Southwest AirlinesSome of the best things in life may be free, but 2 tickets for Southwest Airlines is not one of them.

Internet scammers looking to make money either by committing identity theft or earning commission on completed online surveys are offering a pair of free Southwest Airline tickets in order to trick people into divulging personal information.

Like most survey scams, they’re using the popular Facebook social networking site in order to spread their evil-doings.

If you happen to see this message (or something similar to it) popup on your Facebook page, be sure to ignore it:

Southwest Airline Ticket Spam
Receive 2 FREE Southwest Airline Tickets Today!

care2fly.com

For a limited time you can receive 2 FREE Southwest Airline Tickets good for any travel within the USA! Don't wait, this is a one time free gift offered just in time for the Holidays!

Keep in mind that crooks tend to use more than one domain name to advertise their survey scams, so additional URL’s may be in use.

It’s the same ol’ scam story once you click the link in the spam message – you’re taken to a webpage that requests that you extend the life of the scam by sharing it with all of your Facebook friends and help build credibility to persuade future victims by posting a comment.

The scammers expect everyone to fall in line and follow the leader after that -- kind of how the critters did in that Lemmings game from the 90's.

Page Offering Free Southwest Airline Tickets

After posting a comment, you will be redirected to another page that starts off slow by asking just for your email address.

Enter Your Email for Free Southwest Airline Tickets! (Not.)


However, once you click ‘continue’, you’ll be asked a far more intrusive set of questions including your name, address, date of birth, along with both your mobile and home phone numbers. While the page claims that the information you provide will not be used for any purpose beyond sending you your tickets, those who are smart enough to read between the lines will realize that’s a flat out lie.

Scammer says, 'Gimme all your info for 2 free Southwest Airline tickets! Muahaha!!'

Just like the offer for 2 FREE Southwest Airline tickets. For you see, hidden in the block of fine print at the bottom of the page it states that you must follow a series of steps including completing 13 “reward offers” and resisting the urge to cancel more than 2 of them within a 30-day period.

Those “reward offers” are quite misleading, as the only one who will reap the “rewards” of whatever is being offered is the company that you’ll be forced to start a paid subscription with. That’s where requirement that you don’t cancel your services within the first 30-days comes in – it’s typically the length of any given trial period.

Ah, yes, it’s starting to make sense now, eh?

If you’ve fallen for this scam, then it’s recommended that you:

  1. Delete the spam message from your Facebook wall.

  2. Watch out for future scams that may arrive via email or snail mail since you provided both your email and physical address. You should also watch for signs of identity theft.

  3. Warn your friends and family members not to click on any links related to this scam – let alone give out any personal information.

  4. Avoid following links in messages that offer deals that “appear too good to be true” or some insane video that will blow your mind or lose respect for some celebrity as they typically lead to survey scam or even malware.


If you see a friend or family member posting this scam on Facebook, alert them that it is nothing more than a survey scam and refer them to the 4 steps above.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @hyphenet or “Like” us on Facebook to stay up-to-date on the latest security threats.

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