Don’t fall for this FB scam

[ScAMMEDbyWaterstones]

I was scammed, unbelievably as I’m pretty savvy. Sadly I have a weakness for books and bargains which this crowd took advantage of me over.

Well what was the scam?
You filled out a form?

You can't trust facebook for anything advert wise now. Anyone can claim to be anyone and post an ad as long as they are paying and facebook just don't care. The rule should be for everyone to never click on a link from a facebook ad, I assume they are all dodgy! Especially the ones to buy things.

More details?

I had an email from the real Waterstones yesterday warning about scams purporting to be them, and now I see why.

Almost everything like this you see on social media is a scam. Why on earth did you think this was genuine?

If it sounds too good to be true...

What happened after you filled out the form?

Just buy from an approved seller. Not difficult.

This seems like a pretty obvious scam tbh...

Assuming you gave card details for postage costs or something…?

Be sure to cancel your cards!

It’s a minefield out there for scams - I feel like I am exposed to one daily (text, phone calls, ads, emails)

What’s the scam?

How were you scammed, did you hand over money? You weren't scammed by Waterstones btw so why is that your username!?

YABU for not giving more info about the scam

What details did you put in? Card details?

Just looked it up on Facebook. You fill in a form and pay £3 for a large box of books. The post I saw had loads of, presumably made up, posts from people saying they'd got their books with photos. I can sort of see why it works, people aren't too worried about parting with £3 and the posts supposedly from recipients makes it look genuine.
Hopefully £3 is all the op lost

Does anyone pay attention to facebook crap ads.

Well that's the thing, it doesn't look like an ad. It just looks like a post from an ordinary person. For a while now Facebook has just been putting all sorts of stuff on my page, so I often get posts from people I don't know and am not friends with 'suggested' to me. I assume that's what happened to the op.

Never click on any links from social media and enter your card details, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a scam.

Facebook and all the other social media entities should not allow advert links to enter your card details. Working in fraud this is such a common scam we come across and quite a few people do fall victim to it unfortunately.

If you haven't already, I would suggest you request a new credit card as it's likely to have been compromised and you might start seeing fraudulent transactions coming out of your account.

If its too good to be true, it usually always is. Don't ever click on the advert links, go directly to the companies website, using your own search engine. If the offer is available, it will show on their website without clicking on any dodgy links.

It doesn't really look like a normal person's post though. It looks like a fake person advertising something dodgy which is exactly what it is. It doesn't read at all how someone genuine would post something and it's not remotely believable that Waterstone's would have this as some kind of secret loophole

There's one like that for a beauty box from Boots. Full of fake comments saying "I just got mine!"

Well OP clearly fell for it! Plenty of peole do. It's the fake comments afterwards that bolster it.

A very quick Facebook search for 'Waterstones questionnaire' comes up with scores of nearly identical posts, complete with AI generated images of random people showing off their 'free' books.

If it looks too good to be true...

Go to the menu in top right corner and click on "feeds". All the crap should go. Until next time...

Anything put on your feed by people you don't know is likely to be there for a reason (ie someone has paid to put it there). The idea of clicking a fb link and making a payment seems bizarre to me!

I’m not sure how you think this is helpful.

It isn’t believable to you and it wouldn’t be to me either, tbh.

But it clearly is believable to some other people as Op and others have fallen for it.

So OP sharing it is helpful, so that other people who may fall for it see it’s a scam before doing so.

Common scam.

Well known company giving away a box of products FOC or for a minimal payment with the "secret" revealed by an employee, family member or disgruntled/ex-employee. Always backed up with lots of positive reviews.

The classic warning still stands...... If it is too good to be true then it probably is.☹️

It's not Waterstones that have scammed you.

These kinds of posts on FB come around regularly. They are ALWAYS from someone saying "my sister/brother/friend etc, works for XYZ company and they are giving away "whatever" for just £3. I've seen so many of them.

OP - watch your bank account like a hawk, because you will have signed up to a subscription which will take around £40 every two weeks from your account.

And they are nigh on impossible to cancel.

My friend had to contact her bank and they closed her account and had to issue a new debit card to her. She didn't get any of her money back unfortunately, as she'd not been defrauded, as she'd signed up willingly.

I actually think it's a bit naive/dangerous to think 'I would never fall for a scam'. What seems obvious to one person won't be to another. We should all be vigilant regardless of how intelligent or switched on we think we are.

Oh and there is no way of stopping suggested stuff coming into your Facebook feed. It isn't all paid for at all. You have to click not interested on each individual thing that comes up but that's like King Canute trying to stop the tide. What the op saw might have been thrown up because she likes books, there's no way of stopping that happening.