With each passing day, fraudsters continue to develop new ‘trap’ methods for purposes such as ransom, seizure of information or theft of savings. The last of these created a big agenda especially abroad. On behalf of United Arab Emirates, one of the world’s largest airline companies, fake messages began to be published on social media, and these fake campaigns began to spread over WhatsApp.
In the fake messages in question, it was claimed that Emirates had started a sweepstakes and a website link was sent to users. The fake Emirates website, created when this website link was clicked, contained information about the lottery, and users were presented with a survey that would enable them to participate in this lottery.
Fake website, fake lottery and fake rules:
After the survey on the website in question, a few boxes were presented to the users. Allegedly, one of these boxes contained a gold ticket that provided free round-trip flights on European, Asian or domestic flights. All users were actually getting caught in the network of fraudsters by removing this golden ticket from the boxes.
It was the false rules for the use of the golden ticket that allowed the scam to spread. According to them, users had to share this draw with 5 WhatsApp groups or 20 friends. After this stage, users were asked for their addresses, personal information and bank account information.
Statement from Emirates:
With the spread of the said fraud method, a statement came from Emirates. While it is not known how many people were affected by the said method, the airline company made the following statements in its statement:
“Emirates has identified fraudulent emails and SMS/WhatsApp messages allegedly from Emirates that contain links to a website claiming to offer free airfares to survey respondents.
We advise anyone who receives this message not to click on any link or forward the message on social media. Emirates is investigating the source of the fraud and will take appropriate legal action against the perpetrators.”
The fraud method in question has actually been applied on behalf of many brands in the past. It has been proven again how much attention should be paid to issues such as not clicking on the lottery or contest links sent with the last event, not sharing your information with parties you do not trust.
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