‘Trending WorldWide’ Facebook Page Is a Scam
The original site is no longer online; links go to the Internet Archive copy.
What the fact-checkers found
Yet another scam page on Facebook is duping unwary users by offering free holidays. This version calls itself “Trending WorldWide” and offers users the chance to win various fabulous prizes, including Christmas trips to New York, luxury stays in Phuket, and Lord Howe Island getaways all with spending money thrown in.
Of course, prizes offered are not real and there will be no winners other than the scammers who created the fake prize page.
In fact, the “Trending WorldWide” Facebook Page is a typical like-farming scam designed to promote itself across the network and gather large numbers of Page likes as quickly as possible.
Once the bogus Facebook Page has substantially increased its likes and potential reach via the fake prize offers, its owners can then launch survey scams and other types of fraudulent schemes, this time to a much larger pool of potential victims.
In some cases, the scammers may private message participants and claim that they have won a prize. But, the scammers will ask for upfront payments or sensitive personal information, ostensibly to allow the prize claim to be processed.
Scams like this are extremely common on Facebook.
Here’s how Facebook Like-Farming works:
Screenshots of some of the Trending WorldWide scam posts:
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