“Thanks for my tickets”: fake competition

And again status reports on Facebook lure you with free tickets. This time it is an alleged Europa Park competition.

However, the great joy of free tickets for 300 families will quickly turn out to be an illusion, because this competition on Facebook does not keep what it promises. And before any confusion arises: Europa Park has no connection to this competition!

In status messages on Facebook, but also as messages via WhatsApp, many users see a competition that promises 4 Europa-Park free tickets for 300 families. The occasion is the 42nd anniversary. After all, Europa Park was opened on July 12, 1975, and this number is STILL correct, although the anniversary argument is a bit flawed.

However, let's take a look at what lies behind this generous promise of winnings and follow the call; At this point you end up on a website that presents itself as a kind of quiz. This website presents itself as Europa Park, the logo and corporate design are used.

In this quiz you have to answer a few questions, but the answers to them are completely irrelevant for the rest of the course. It doesn't matter which answers you choose, a winning confirmation always appears at the end. This promise of profit forms the bridge to the actual goal. But before you can collect the promised profit, you first have to “SHARE” the POST for “virality purposes” (Share in Facebook). By the way, this is how the status post shown above is created on Facebook. On the other hand, in the second step you should click on a “Like” button.

However, clicking on “Like” triggers a redirect and you end up in a so-called affiliate. This affiliate itself is of course not illegal, but it is neither connected to the previously promised profit nor, at this point, to Europa Park. Rather, it is a commission program and anyone who has integrated the link into their website and forwards you to this competition receives a commission.

 

This is also the reason why such fake competitions are constructed: the aim is to display advertising or to incorporate advertising links in a credible and effective way. The author of the fake competition simply doesn't care whether their own content is correct.

Classic fake competition!

We are dealing with a typical fake competition, the likes of which can be found en masse on Facebook or WhatsApp. These fake competitions follow a typical three-step process:

The first step is the bait. This bait usually appears in the form of a status message on Facebook, a WhatsApp message or, in rare cases, an Instagram message. These baits are all identical in nature: they give the illusion of a win that you actually already have in your pocket. They entice you with the ease of participation and direct you to a website. This is the bait . The bait is the viral entry into the competition process.

Step two is usually a website that pretends to be a 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 appears in the form of a fake competition. In this bridge, you are usually promised the prize directly, there is deception and fake elements are used. Ultimately, this bridge is also an illegal component because the promises made are not kept and the structure and presentation 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 is 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.