Fake Six Flags Giveaways on Facebook

Did you recently like and share a photo on Facebook with hopes that you would win a free set of tickets to Six Flags? Such giveaways are rampant on Facebook. And they’re fake.

The newest addition of fake giveaways on Facebook claims to offers Six Flags tickets, supposedly in celebration of a profitable year. We’ve already seen numerous fake Apple and Samsung “giveaways” come and go, along with Playstation, Beats by Dre, and countless others.

Let’s take a look at the newest (and fake) Six Flags giveaway circulating on Facebook in August 2013:

Celebrating An Amazing $1.3 Billion in revenue in 2013 we at Six Flags have decided to end your summer vacation off with a bang by giving away 302 Six Flags Season Tickets to YOU our fans!

To be entered to win all you have to do is the following:
1. LIKE and SHARE this photo!
2. To Claim Your Free Tickets Click the following link –>

(LINK REMOVED)

and that’s it!

Consider the following

• The URL being used for these giveaways is typically a newly-created website. The one in the example above was created about two weeks prior to this writing.
• A national Six Flags giveaway would be mentioned on the official Six Flags Facebook page, which it is not.
• Such giveaways violate Facebook’s terms, which state: “You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.”
• The links provided take you to a page which requires you to sign up for surveys and other annoyances.

Bait and Switch

The link given in the fake giveaway above first takes you to a page which asks you which promotion you would like, then states that you will be required to fill out “one of the following surveys.” This, too, is a lie, as the next web page you’ll land on requires much more.

After clicking on the “4 Tickets to Six Flags” link, we were taken to another site, which is a so-called “rewards” program. These programs require you to sign up for several offers which often cost money or require a credit check – and are probably of little interest you. Such “offers” may include a monthly cookware club, an eMusic subscription, Baby Einstein Book Club, credit cards, etc. It is typically quite difficult to complete such “rewards” programs. Even if you do complete it, your “free” tickets may have ended up costing you more than their face value. The vast majority of people never come close to completing these programs, and do not receive any tickets.

Why do they do it?

Why such do such pages and fake giveaways exist at all? In some cases, this is merely a fast way to build likes and page popularity. In this case, it appears that at lease some of the fake Six Flags giveaways are a ruse to get people to sign up for these misleading “rewards” programs.

Bottom Line

There are no “free” Six Flags tickets to be had from giveaways such as this. Liking and sharing phony giveaways will only increase their frequency, and degrade the experience of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

If you see a friend liking and sharing fake giveaways like this, let them know that they have been fooled.