A fake competition on the “ALDI Fans” website offers attractive prizes. Facebook page creators repeatedly use third-party identities to organize alleged competitions. And ALDI is a popular target for these scammers. They give the impression that they are official Facebook pages of well-known companies, that they are celebrating a new opening or that the goods were packaged incorrectly.

The current situation is that the “Aldi Fans” Facebook page cannot provide an imprint or other information about the organizer. The page itself was only created a day ago, on April 3, 2022, and yet thousands of users follow the page and over 13,000 have already commented on the supposed competition, as you can see in this screenshot. In addition, the picture of the employees was from 2020 and shows an Aldi opening in England! ( Here )

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Screenshot: Facebook “Aldi Fans” from April 4, 2022 / 2:15 p.m

If you have commented, you will be informed that you still have to share the competition so that you can complete the “validation process”. Once you have done this, you supposedly need another 24 hours to check everything!

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These are automated comments, because no matter what a user comments here, the same answer always comes within 1 second. Even if you write “FAKE” or a note that “Al Bundy scored four touchdowns in one game in 1966” 🙂

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There is a link in the status post itself. If you follow the instructions, you end up on a fake “ALDI” page with a competition form:

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Since different pages kept opening after completing this form, we have completed the test at this point!

THE FACT IS

  1. This is not an OFFICIAL ALDI Facebook page.
  2. The page was only created 24 hours ago and does not contain any imprint, contact details or conditions of participation
  3. The picture with the employees, which can be seen on Facebook, was from 2020 and is being used illegally. In the photo you can see the opening of Aldi in England (Aldi has today opened a new shop in Rathnew in Co Wicklow as it continues its nationwide expansion). ( HERE )

Since some people on Facebook are not yet aware that there are no real prizes in such competitions, we would like to explain again...

... the fake competition on Facebook!

Take a real or fictional occasion and tell the user that there is something great to be won on the occasion of these great events. The criteria for participation are quickly listed:

  • Leave a Comment
  • split
  • like
  • send personal message

Sometimes a deadline for participation is added, but the competitions are usually deleted by the operator before this deadline.

To ensure that there are no actual winners, the site owner should be contacted via personal message.
If the fake is successful, a new competition with a different prize will be created within a very short time. It doesn't matter whether you were able to win a car and then a dream house... The main thing is that users interact or follow a link that actually has completely different purposes.

“But if I play along, it won’t hurt anyone!”

True. Only yourself by showing your entire circle of friends and acquaintances on Facebook how gullible you are . You also show this to the creator of the page, who will be very interested in luring you with further competitions in the future in order to get more data from you. Because data brings money. And pages with a lot of likes and shares sell well.

“How am I supposed to know when a competition is real?”

We have a very simple checklist for this. If several or even all of the points on this list apply, you should stay away!

  • Either a well-known brand, a well-known company is represented or an imaginary name is used
  • Users are forced to like and share, which is the case here
  • there is no (credible) imprint
  • no conditions of participation exist
  • no contact option
  • no correct company (imprint) available
  • The site has only existed for a short time, which is also the case here.
  • no winners will be announced
  • Prizes are provided by sponsors who “do not wish to be named”
  • The prizes are advertised with copied images from the Internet
  • For well-known companies, look for the blue verification check mark that is often present behind the page name in the cover photo

Do you have friends who take part in competitions like this?

Then please point out that this is a fake competition. But also explain to them why there is nothing to be gained from this and similar sites. And be emphatic, because if these people have their friends list open on their profile, you, as friends of that gullible person, are also interesting to those who create fake competitions.

What else can happen

Note: Why is/was there this competition? Of course there is a financial interest behind these sites. There are various ways you can profit from successful fake competitions. Everything is possible, from harmless page sales to nasty subscription traps.

So far, we have seen a lot of fake competitions that these types of competitions are always very similar. In the first stage, they seduce with their simple participation. You should share and like a high-quality, potential win. Anyone can do it, it's not a hurdle. This attracts people.

Possibility of “side sales” / “like farming”

The site is then “grown” with the help of these attracting events. The site operator is working to increase fan numbers. At a certain point, this site will be for sale. Fans just end up wondering what content they'll see after the sale and why they ever liked that page.

“Affiliate” option

Once the number of participants reaches a certain point, the description of the competition will be changed. The conditions of participation are supplemented and a link is usually included that you should visit. There are some affiliate programs waiting there through which the “organizer” collects commissions.

In the harmless case, these are partner programs that provide the participant with a lot of advertising; in the extreme case, there is a WAP billing subscription trap hidden behind the link for visitors via smartphone (from which the organizer also collects commissions, of course). Every now and then you can find these sophisticated Facebook pages for sale on eBay.

No matter what else happens: the advertised profit doesn't exist!


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )