- Whole Foods Market Informs of Scam - That Other Paper
The world’s leader in natural and organic foods is warning users of Facebook that there is a scam about. The company, which has more than 270 stores in North America and the United Kingdom, said it only posts its contests on its official Web site and official Facebook page.
Whole Foods contest a scam
The Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods said on its official Facebook page that the scam first appeared last Thursday. The scam intended to steal personal information while posing as a contest to win $500 gift cards to Whole Foods supermarkets.
The scam page offers fan a sign-up sheet for the giveaway. It then downloads malware on the user’s computer and phishes for credit card and financial information.
“Dear Fans, Please be wary of Facebook Pages offering you $500 Whole Foods Gift Cards. We only run giveaways and promotions on this Facebook Page and our stores' Pages,” reads the posting dated April 2 on its official Whole Foods Facebook page. “We have reported these to Facebook, and you can report these fraudulent Pages by clicking the "Report Page" link on the bottom of the left column on the left column of the Wall view.”
Facebook site disappears
By Tuesday morning, the fraudulent Whole Foods page seemed to disappear, but other scams could arise for other companies as well. A Facebook spokesperson said the social-networking site takes situations like this very seriously.
“Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and scams is a top priority for us,” the spokesperson said Tuesday in a written statement. “Groups and Pages that attempt to trick people into taking a certain action or spamming their friends with invites violate our policies, and we have a large team of professional investigators who quickly remove these when we detect them or they're reported to us by our users.”
Anyone who see a page that seems like a scam or incorrect should hit “Report Page” link to flag Facebook. All Internet users should be aware that putting any personal information on the Internet is unsafe and should always use secure networks.
Whole Foods has been informing its customers via Facebook and Twitter. It hopes to stop people from partaking in a scam.
The company, founded in 1980, was recently recognized on the Ethisphere Institute’s 2010 “World’s Most Ethical Companies” list. It was one of three to make the “Foods Store” category, according to a Whole Foods press release. It has 53,000 employees and is 324 on the Fortune 500 list.
http://www.facebook.com/wholefoods
Veronica Reino - When I was in the second grade I made my first newspaper. I wrote all of the articles and drew in all the ‘photographs.’ Ten ...
