In the month of January 2015, a number of links started circulation on the Facebook offering free passes for lifetime to McDonalds and KFC, supposedly in the anniversaries celebration of their specific brands. These entrenched links redirected to several URLs and most of the users clicked through to claim their free lifetime pass to KFC or Starbucks, were redirected to another page with unrelated material. It is important that attached URLs in the posted images were not specifically and officially related to the domains linked to McDonalds or KFC. Most of the Facebook users approved sharing the invitation or offer in order to recruit friends and boosted this fake promotion.
It is considered a sweepstakes scam or a standard survey in which the original product used to cheat visitors for subscribing many most expensive offers. Most of the social media users are well aware with these kinds of survey scams that are being circulated on most of the social media networks. Lowe’s Kroger, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Home Depot, Best Buy, Costco, Publix, Wal-Mart, Olive Garden and Target are famous that are being used as bait by most of the scammers. These types of scams are also being used for capturing personal information and valuable Page Likes by Facebook users. The Better Business Bureau explained in an article published in the month of July 2014 that how social media users can prevent scammers motivating with top level brands on social media network. A specific scam started circulation in the month of October 2015 promising lifetime passes to Starbucks in the same way.