We are in the middle of the big shopping season and many people are looking for some good deals before Christmas. At the same time, contests from various stores with good prizes are constantly appearing, which scammers know how to take advantage of.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to distinguish what is real and what is fake, it turns out that several hundred people have commented on a fake Rema 1000 contest on Facebook.
300,000 Norwegians deceived
Several thousand comments
The newly created Rema 1000_Fans Facebook page with 1,600 followers has launched a “competition” in which lucrative prizes are raffled off. There are also other fake Rema 1000 pages
“To celebrate Christmas this year, @REMA1000 is sending a special gift bag and shopping card to everyone who shares and comments on ‘Merry Christmas’ before December 5th. Thanks, share this post in any group if you want this gift AND REGISTER HERE” says the page.
To make the competition more believable, the scammer used images of Rema 1000 employees and shopping bags.
At the time of writing, the “contest” has just under 2,300 likes and nearly 6,000 comments. Additionally, 5,200 people shared the post.
Unsurprisingly, the contest is too good to be true, and a quick search also turns up similar fake pages and contests for Europris and Clas Ohlson, among others.
Several thousand Norwegians have clicked on this fake competition. Photo: screenshot
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Comes with prompts
Celine Sjøberg, communications consultant at Rema 1000, tells DinSide that they are aware of the scam attempt and are not happy that someone is pretending to be them. The store chain is in good conversation with Facebook on this.
– We encourage our customers to be very careful and of course we don’t want any of our customers to be deceived, he writes in an email.
If you are not sure if the Facebook page is real, you can look behind the page name. A blue mark means the page has been verified by Facebook.
– You will not see it on these pages. If you are unsure, be critical of the source. Look up the brand on Facebook and send a direct message and we can confirm or deny.
Warning: everyone “wins”
Check this first
As usual, there are plenty of warning signs that reveal scammers. Most importantly, the page is newly created and has no published content other than the contest, which you can find out if you click on the page:
After all, most run contests to get more followers for their page, because that way you can reach more people with other messages, like offers and the like. If you only find contests on such a Facebook page, the red lights should go on.
Most “real” pages also have a stamp showing they’ve been verified by Facebook – illustrated with a red ring below:
This is the official Rema 1000 Facebook page.
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