Online Threat Alerts (OTA) - Alerting you to scams and frauds.

Costco Giveaway 2020 Free Food Box Scam on Facebook
Costco Giveaway 2020 Free Food Box Scam on Facebook

There is a new Costco Giveaway scam that claims the grocery store will be giving away Christmas food boxes that contain groceries and a voucher. The scam uses a fake Facebook post and claims to be Costco's CEO, Walter Craig Jelinek.

The Costco Free Food Box Giveaway Scam

"COMPETlTlON ALERT! My name is Walter Craig Jelinek and I'm the CEO of Costco.

To celebrate our Birthday, Every single person who shares and comments in the next 24hrs will get one of these Christmas Food Box delivered straight to their door on Saturday 28th November. Each Food box contains groceries worth 35 and a voucher. Limit 1 Food box per person."

This new Costco Food Box scam is being used to trick Facebook users into commenting on or liking a fake post in order to make it popular and gather up potential victims. Therefore, if you have already commented on the fake Costco Facebook post, please remove your comment and "unlike" it.

Once the scammers behind fake the post have enough Facebook users, they will start sending them spam (unsolicited messages) with links that will take potential victims to phishing websites that will steal their information, or malicious links that will take them to dangerous websites that will infect their computers with Spyware or Trojan horse. The scammers may also send fraudulent messages claiming that their potential victims are so-called lottery winners and they need to send money in order to claim their prizes.

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