Woolworth Email Survey Scam: How It Works
(with videos below) It’s always nice when a store that you visit often offers gifts for your loyalty. Well, as the latest in a series of freebie scams proves, the allure of getting something for nothing is often the quickest road to getting ripped-off. Recently, the Woolworth brand is being used as a front for this latest phishing scam.
This scam follows almost the same steps as the Starbucks Gift Card Scam, which has been perpetrating weeks ago via emails and social media. Watch the video below to see it in action.
Starbucks Gift Card Scam Video
In this Woolworth variation of the scam, victims are receiving emails, purportedly from the company, offering them $70 for filling out a survey. Here is the content of the email, with the subject line: “You Have Been Chosen by Woolworth Survey”. The content is written in bad English.
“You Have been chosen by Woolworth online departement to take part in our quick and easy 5 question surveys. In return we will send $70 AUD bonus to your account and will be processing it within 2 working days – Just for your time.”
“Helping us better to understand how our customers feel , benefits everyone , With the information collected we can decide to direct a number of changes to improve and expand our online services. As part of our commitment to execellence , we want to make sure we met your needs during our conversation. Would you please take a minute to answer a few questions to let us know how we did?”
“You will be provided with steps to claim your rewards. The system will validate the information that you entered with our records. If we are unable to validate the information electronically, you may no longer be able to receive this rewards. As the party who controls the data collected in this survey, may use your responses together with existing data it has about you to ensure its products and services meet your needs.”
The email urges customers to visit a website in order to fill out a form to receive their gift card.
While on the site, victims are giving out their personal identification information, leaving themselves open to identity theft. The gift card, of course, never comes.
Woolworth Email Scam: How To Avoid
Large retailers such as Woolworth advise their customers that they rarely if ever offer these kinds of deals to customers, and never through unsolicited email campaigns. The real ones do have marketing campaigns encouraging people to “like” their posts and share them, but giving away $500 vouchers to millions of Facebook users just doesn’t seem right.
If you receive one of these offers or emails, contact the company and verify the deal. Chances are, there is no deal and you’ve saved yourself the pain of identity theft. These sorts of scams are often circulated on Facebook as well. Be advised that companies also do not advertise these deals on Facebook either. It is rare that a consumer gets something for nothing; be aware of this and protect yourself from becoming an easy target.
If you really want to participate in rewards programs and gift cards are your thing, use only legitimate companies. One of the most trustworthy service out there is Swagbucks.com, which is the world’s largest free online rewards program. You get paid by doing things online which you might do anyway, such as searching the web, discover products, take surveys, watch videos, or play games. You can also get free iTunes and Amazon cards. The company has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. You can register for free HERE. They offer a $5 sign-up bonus.
Woolworth Email Scam: How To Report
Let your family and friends know about the Woolworth Email scam by sharing it on social media here, using the buttons provided. You can also officially report the scammers to the Federal Trade Commission using the link below:
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Lately I’m being inundated with mobile phone text messages from a company called: https://accesslnk.com/iqUf8W5 which sends you to a professionally set up Woolies site., but straight into the so-called simple survey. Pushing the need to do for an offer for today only!
Offer is free goods, including a 65"TV all for $0 and pay for freight only.
A quick call to Woolies confirmed they organised no such deals!
So yet another new SCAM method!
Not sure if something is a SCAM? For starters, look at the spelling of "Survey" in the headline…virtually every one of these scam messages that I’ve seen have obvious/blatant errors in spelling, grammar and/or syntax. Legitimate companies make sure that their messages don’t.