They are trendy and becoming increasingly popular – tiny homes. One more reason for fake competition organizers to advertise them as prizes.

Same competition, just on a different page. Around 30,000 Facebook users interacted with this competition, even though there is nothing to win.

This is what these fakes look like:

Screenshot by mimikama.org
Screenshot by mimikama.org
Screenshot by mimikama.org
Screenshot by mimikama.org

Tiny Home Competition
We are giving away a tiny home with interior design of your choice.
This is how you secure your participation:
1. Write us the city in which your tiny home should be located in a comment.
2. You must be a fan of our “Tiny Home” site.
3. Share this post.
The competition will be closed on August 19, 2018.
The winner will be contacted via messenger. This competition has no connection with Facebook.
Good luck!

Fake competitions

We reported on this competition on August 14, 2018. But here the tiny home is raffled off from a different perspective.

Such fake competitions are still being shared, commented on, liked on a massive scale and why? Because people somehow hope to get something for free. Especially if you can't afford a car or don't own a home in real life.

However, these scammers play on exactly these feelings and don't want to give users anything, they just want to enrich themselves. They attract users with high-value prizes to generate likes or lead them to an external website.

Checklist of dubious competitions:

  • 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 available
  • The site has only existed for a very 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

Why such fake competitions?

Why do people do this, you might ask? What do such fake competition organizers get out of it?

In principle, it's about likes, likes, likes as well as user data , which is ultimately sold for a profit. The data ends up in a database, which then hangs around on the internet for years. The user can no longer get out of this cycle and can then rely on numerous advertising emails, advertising calls, etc. "be happy". But that's not all, because in most cases such user data is also sold. Such a data set can then earn the seller a few euros.

The fraudsters are primarily targeting personal data or want to lure the user to an affiliate program .

“Affiliate”

From a certain point onwards, the description of the competition will be changed.

The conditions of participation are supplemented, usually a link is inserted that you should visit. There are some affiliate programs waiting there through which the “organizer” collects commissions. In the most harmless case, these are partner programs that give the participant 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!

Be careful when it comes to putting your personal data on the Internet. Don't be fooled! First think – then click!

The famous 3 steps

Such competitions take place in three stages. See also the fake Phantasia Land competition . Because fake competitions, which have a strong virality, are a business model. In contrast to real competitions that are organized by companies for advertising purposes, fake competition organizers use the product as a decoy.

The first step is the bait.

This bait usually appears in the form of a status message on Facebook, in a WhatsApp message or, in rare cases, as an Instagram message. These baits are all identical in nature: they convey the hope of winning that you basically already have in your pocket. They seduce with the ease of participation and lure people to a website. This is the bait . The bait is the viral entry into the competition process.

Step two usually represents a website,

...which masquerades as a supposed competition with a question and answer session. This round of questions is not necessarily always present, as it is irrelevant and is only intended to simulate a competition. We also call this step two the bridge . The bridge takes the form of a fake competition. In this bridge, you are usually promised a win directly, deception is used and fake elements are used. Ultimately, this bridge is also an illegal component because the promises made are not kept and the structure and display uses protected graphic elements. The corporate design of existing companies and their products are mercilessly exploited; on the bridge people also like to pretend to be the company depicted. Goal of the bridge:

a) Generate virality (example: forward this competition to 20 contacts)
b) a link is installed that should lead to the supposed prize

The third and final step

...represents a so-called affiliate program. You leave the bridge via a link that contains an affiliate code that belongs to a commission program. This is an affiliate whose content, if possible, correlates with the fake competition taking place in the bridge. We call this final link the exit. Note: The exit itself, i.e. the affiliates that are linked to, is not illegal! These are business models in which the respective provider of such programs compensates its sales partners through commissions.

These sales partners are recognized by the provider through an identification code, so that every newly registered participant in the affiliate competition can also be assigned to the sales partner. By the way, the person who designs the bridge freely decides which partner program he uses as an exit. We also often find systems that read the participant's origin and device information and thus direct them specifically to different commission programs. Therefore, you can never say clearly which commission program will ultimately be used; in the worst case, you will end up with dubious WAP billing stories or opaque subscription services.

Screenshot by mimikama.org

The fake counts!

Therefore, the author of Bait and Bridge, who is also likely to be the respective sales partner of the affiliate provider, has a great interest in ensuring that his fake story sounds as credible as possible in advance, but at the same time also has a high potential for virality.

A good lie is therefore half the battle when it comes to fake news and fake competitions.

Both use the same elements and can therefore be seen as related. However, fake competitions are usually designed in a somewhat more rudimentary manner and are also simpler in their presentation, as the pseudo-editorial part is much smaller. This is probably also the reason why fake competitions are much more widespread than commercial fake news.

Have you found a suspicious competition on Facebook? forward this to us for review .


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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 )