Costco Free Grocery Box

Costco Free Grocery Box Scam: How It Works

Beware of a new Costco Free Grocery Box scam happening on Facebook today. How does it work? It comes as a “Christmas Costco food giveaway”. This offer is offered by Walter Craig Jelinek, Costco CEO, who mentions that those interested in receiving the gift need to do one small thing.

The scam is perpetrated by the same crooks operating the Aldi Food Box and the Dollar General scams. Let's take a look at the fraudulent post.

---

Scam Detectors Most Trusted Websites in Online Security

1. Guard.io (100): Surf the web safely. Clean up your browser, remove maliscious extensions and check for privacy violations.
2. Incogni.com (100): Delete your personal data from the internet and protect against scams and identity theft.
3. ExpressVPN (100) Stay secure and anonymous online - Best VPN Out There

---

Here is a screenshot of the fake promo.

 

As mentioned, the Costco Free Grocery Box scam is advertised on Facebook as if it would come from the real CEO, Walter Craig Jelinek. Let's see.

Costco CEO Walter Craig Jelinek Impersonation

The content promoted by the bogus Walter Craig Jelinek states the following:

“Competition Alert! My name is Walter Craig Jelinek and I'm the CEO of Costco.”

“To celebrate our Birthday, Every single person who shares and comments in the next 24hrs will get one of these Christmas Food Box delivered straight to their door on Saturday 28th November. Each Food box contains groceries worth $35 and a voucher. Limit 1 Food box per person. Register here https://bit.ly/2FUd7Gt”.

Let's say you click on the link. What happens? You are redirected to a crappy designed page where the crook asks you to type in your email address. In addition, you need to create a password, plus submit your credit card info.

The criminal impersonating Walter Craig Jelinek says: “This is not a scam! Your Credit card is needed for verification! Why? As a prize recipient, once you have registered successfully, the prize will be sent within 30 minutes to your account“. Yeah, right.

Should stay away from this.

Costco Free Groceries: Not Really

Is Costco Free Groceries offer a scam? Yup, it is. There are quite a few red flags that we can spot on this fake Costco Free Grocery Box scam. In the corporate world, no CEO is allowed to make this kind of post, especially on Facebook. On the other hand, the content of the message has many grammar mistakes, as well as spelling errors. These promotional offers always come from the brands' marketing departments. Not random from social media posts.

This Costco Free Groceries Scam is created – like all the other ones – to lure you into giving away your personal information. Also, most importantly, the credit card number. All Facebook scams are the same.

Meanwhile, beware of other common shady schemes such as Gift Card scams or the $500 grocery scam.

How to Avoid the Costco Food Giveaway Scam

The Costco Free Grocery Box scam is always framed in various angles, another one being the Costco Raffle scam. They all lead you to anywhere from phishing, identity theft, and sometimes even to malware on your device. It is important to observe the format of the scheme, as you might see the same type of scam but from a different brand tomorrow. Please stay away from this Facebook scam.

Crooks use the Costco brand and other food organizations like Chick-fil-a or Subway. Add your experience below and report the scammers as soon as possible. How can you do that?

 

Costo Scam: How To Report the Fake Craig Jelinek

Let your friends and family know about the Costco Free Grocery Box Scam by sharing this article here, online. You can also report fraudsters or any other suspicious activities to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) using the link below:

Report To The FTC Here

How To Protect Yourself More

If you want to be one of the first people to find out the most prevalent scams weekly, subscribe here to the Scam Detector newsletter here. You will receive periodic messages and emails. On the other hand, educate yourself with some other similar Costco scam-related articles below, so that you know how to stay safe online. Also, use the comments section to expose other scammers.

Phishing Scams: Full List

Free Groceries for Seniors Scam