24 February 2023 , 12:27
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Marks & Spencer shoppers have been warned of a scam that is making the rounds on Facebook.
The scam came from a Facebook page called "M&S Fans" which shared a series of posts claiming that M&S was giving away 500 vouchers for M&S Food worth £100.
The first post, which garnered around 750 shares said: "At M&S we want to show you we care so we're doing something special to help out during these tough times.”
The scam claimed that people who shared and commented on the post within seven days could win a “golden ticket”.
However, a second post came shortly after and told readers to follow a link and fill out a sheet with "quick and simple details" for a chance to win the £500 voucher.
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The post came from a Facebook page called "M&S Fans" which is not affiliated with M&S (Facebook)However, the link took the user to a website which was not affiliated with M&S.
According to an investigation by the independent fact-checking organisation, Full Fact it did not have an official M&S URL address.
To make the scam more convincing, both posts included images of people holding M&S golden tickets.
However, these images had been taken from older stories and had come from the openings of new M&S stores where some branches gave golden tickets to their first 200 customers.
Full Fact's investigation found that one of these images had come from a store opening in Northern Ireland in 2019 and another was taken from an M&S store opening in Chesterfield.
The posts first appeared on a page called M&S Fans on 16 February and this itself was a red flag that it was what it seemed.
The Facebook page is unverified and only has 561 followers compared to the five million which the official M&S page has.
M&S confirmed that the post was not a genuine deal from the supermarket and a warning banner now appears on both posts.
An M&S spokesperson told Mirror Money: “We’ve investigated this and can confirm this is not a genuine deal.
“The images appear to have been taken without permission from local media articles of customers that have won real Golden Tickets that are given out on store opening days.”
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“Our systems continuously scan and alert us to sites which are impersonating M&S and misleading customers, and once identified we take action to have them removed as quickly as possible.”
The scam is another warning to Facebook users on the ways scammers will try and lure you in to try and steal from you, whether that be personal information or money.