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.

Except she's shared it with no detail of what actually happened, what she clicked, whether anything made her think twice, what she filled in, if she has had multiple transactions taken, what steps she's taken to mitigate the impact. So not really helpful.

Anything that claims to be a secret way to get stuff is at best a MLM style bit of nonsense to drag you in to something not completely illegal but certainly not as good as it seems or at worst an outright scam to steal from you.

Pointing that out is more useful than a vague "something bad happened to me that I'm not clarifying"

Anything that starts with the idea of an employee revealing a secret is best ignored.

What was the actual scam OP? You filled out a form and the. What happened? Did they take
money?

What did the questionnaire ask and what happened afterwards? Did it ask for card details/ask you to pay postage? There isn’t enough info in your post as someone might use the scam for something other than books

In the nicest possible way, how could you not know this was a scam? You thought Waterstones would just give out very cheap books? I'd think they're only just keeping their head above water in the Amazon climate

Similar thing happened to me. I was stupid enough (somewhat ironically) to do an IQ test. After completing it they wanted £2 for the result. I paid it. Next thing I knew I had a declined payment, they tried to take a “subscription” of £30 from my account which my bank thankfully declined “because they weren’t sure it was me”. They then cancelled the card and sent me a new one.

YABU for choosing a user name that suggests Waterstones is at fault

Wow - why are you blaming Waterstones? "ScAMMEDbyWaterstones" It should be "ScAMMEDbyScammerOnFacebook "

I think this is why so many don't use social media any more - it's full of political advertising, AI and scams. It isn't a safe place and I wish people just used it to look at friends rather than get distracted by the advertising revenue bilge for Meta.

The internet is fast becoming unusable.

It wasn't Waterstones that scammed you.

Still, I'm sorry to hear you got conned. It can happen to anyone. I remember some conversations on here about the Tinder Swindler and a few posters boasting that they could never be scammed because they liked to read...

Ive seen that for Boots too.

I’m not sure how you can blame Waterstones for this OP?

Honestly, I just delete everything now. I don't have Facebook, and I only use Instagram to look at dog accounts, as I adopt kennel dogs, and that's it.

If I ever get an offer email, or a "did you know that if you../..you get a gift!" type email, etc., I just delete, to be on the safe side. I don't believe in freebies, and if I want something, I'll just go directly to the site.

I know how many savvy people are getting taken in these days, and I want to be as careful as I can.

It;s like all those "Center Parcs are giving away a weekend break" or "free shopping at Asda" as long as you fill in a data harvesting form.

Not at all savvy if you fall for such a blatant scam! Why on earth would Waterstones give away large boxes of books for doing a questionnaire? And how would 3 quid cover postage and packing? It obviously wouldn't, so they would have to be giving out free stock AND paying for postage .
Obvious nonsense

I fell for a similar scam offering a hoody for £ 3.00. Fortunately my bank recognised the scam and blocked the payment but it was a hugely expensive subscription.

God this technology is so stressful. We're now at all times carrying devices in our hands that are conduits for theft on a massive scale.

So are you planning to tell us the scam?

And you weren't scammed by Waterstones.

Explains why Waterstones sent an email about scams around (which ironically got flagged as a spam message)

A very similar post was going around for a while about Boots. Similar pic of a haul of beauty products and saying you pay £3 and get a box worth £300 or something. Lots of comments underneath with people pretending they had got theirs and posted pics.

I was scammed by an email for pet chipping. I had just left my husband, moved house and changed vets when I was sent an email saying that I had to update my details online with one of my dogs. They had his name and DOB and a few other bits of information, so I thought it was something I needed to do. I think I paid about £26.

Weirdly I used Paypal for the first time in my life and doubly weirdly, about 2 days later I was working from home when it featured on a morning TV show about scams doing the rounds. I realised it was the scam featured and I got my money back very quickly.

Anything that says I/my family member used to work for xxx and what most people don't know ........ They are always scams

I had a similar one on FB for a "Boots beauty box." It is a small upfront fee, eg £3.00, but it sets up a recurring subscription on your bank card apparently. These are hard to cancel and people may not realise it's happened. I realised before I did anything too silly, but it was very convincing, Boots logo and font, etc. FB is full of things like that.

Oh and there is no way of stopping suggested stuff coming into your Facebook feed.

Choosing your feed - "Friends" etc - in the way I posted above works for me. Extra button-presses but in theory worth it. If everyone did it there would be less crap pushed on us!

Well are you going to tell us what happened @ScAMMEDbyWaterstones

Or are you a plopper? Starting a thread, putting one post on it then not returning? You are warning people about a scam on Facebook, but have given hardly any details about what happened. Also, you have NOT been scammed by Waterstones, as your usernames suggests.

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