E-bikes and tiny houses are flooding Facebook

It's crazy how many inquiries and reports we receive every day about alleged competitions for e-bikes and small houses or tiny houses. Because of small scratches or damage, they could no longer be sold, which is why they are given away en masse. This information at least explains why expensive items have to be sold in large quantities. – Bullshit!

“I want to win too!”

Many users know straight away that there is nothing to win here. But a lot of people still take part to take advantage of their chance to win an e-bike, tiny house or small house. This can be seen by the number of comments and how often the dubious posts are shared.

Because it is always a prerequisite to comment on the posts with “Thank you”, “Done” or “Congratulations” or something similar, whereupon the alleged “winning process” is stimulated. The posts are often then shared. The number of comments and shares shows that there is still a lot to be done in terms of education, information and media literacy. And the fraudsters who distribute such competitions on Facebook also have this exact knowledge. As long as the scam is still worthwhile, it will be carried out. And e-bikes and small houses are likely to be very popular, so they are often used as bait.

The names of the pages vary - often only minimally. The word “fans” is also often added. The texts are often the same, as are the images (by the way, these are stolen from other sites, the DPA ). Some posts reach such a high number of users that they probably even exceed the authors' expectations.

Excerpt from e-bike competitions in January

Excerpt from Tiny House / Small House / Lille Hus competitions in January

The sites behind the fake competitions

The Facebook pages on which the competitions are published have usually only existed for a few days. Often there is only a single post.

Imprint? – None. Contact option? – You search in vain.

Transparency looks different, but many users don't seem to care. Unfortunately. Because these are the ones who carelessly give away their data.

"I've been getting calls from strange numbers and so many spam emails lately!"

But no e-bike or small house? Well.

Here's some information: Anyone who takes part in these competitions must register on a competition page. These pages also usually stand out due to the lack of a proper imprint. But they are so nice and point out that you have consented to advertising:

“As the organizer, we transmit data to third-party providers who want to contact you for advertising purposes and help us finance the competition. In order for your data to be passed on to third parties and for them and us to contact you for advertising purposes by email, telephone, SMS or post, we and the third parties require appropriate consent. By clicking “Accept and continue”, you agree, revocably at any time (more information here), that we will pass on your data to third parties to the extent that this is necessary for the planned form of advertising (e.g. name and postal address in the case of postal advertising) and that both we as well as the third party providers will contact you by email, post and/or telephone and/or SMS about offers from their respective business areas. You can change your advertising consent under “Settings.”

Plain text for the screenshot data protection and advertising consent

Under the link to “third-party providers” there is a long, very long list of a wide variety of companies that are happy to receive fresh data. They then add these to their contact list, and then it starts with spam, calls, subscription sales, etc. – annoying, right?

Therefore: stay away from such competitions! Warn other people if you see them commenting or sharing such posts. Help us educate so that this avalanche of fakes stops rushing over us.

We also list current fake competitions for you on our site: HERE

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