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  • 2016-02-07 (xsd:date)
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  • Airline Ticket Giveaway Scam (en)
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  • Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their non-material nature and the fact that they're not tremendously expensive (compared to, say, a new car) makes it seem plausible to the public that they're something a business might actually be giving away for free as part of an advertising promotion. Virtually every major U.S. air carrier — including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, Emirates, United Airlines, US Airways, Continental Airlines, Alaska Airlines, WestJet Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Air Canada — has been invoked in various online free ticket giveaway scams in recent years: The primary type of free ticket fraud is the sweepstakes scam, which is intended to lure victims into completing numerous surveys, disclosing a good deal of personal information, and then agreeing to sign up for costly, difficult-to-cancel Reward Offers hidden in the fine print. The scammers spread links via e-mail and Facebook that purport to offer free air travel tickets to those who follow those links. These web pages (which are not operated or sponsored by the airlines they reference) typically ask the unwary to click what appear to be Facebook share buttons and post comments to the scammer's site (which is really a ruse to dupe users into spreading the scam by sharing it with all of their Facebook friends). Those who follow such instructions are then led into a set of pages prompting them to input a fair amount of personal information (including name, age, address, and phone numbers), complete a lengthy series of surveys, and finally sign up (and commit to paying) for at least two Reward Offers (e.g., Netflix subscriptions, credit report monitoring services, prepaid credit cards): Not only that, but the fine print on the free tickets offers typically states that by accepting its terms, the user agrees to receive telemarketing phone calls and text messages from a variety of different companies: In short, those who seek free merchandise generally end up paying a dear cost for it. (en)
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