Another fake comp?

custardcream1000

WOW Hamster you should be a private investigator!

Do you think the company had fabricated 'Samantha' or do you think it is a person with a fake account?

It makes me feel sick that someone would steel the photo of a dead person.

sydroo

I posted this on the comp thread on here yesterday:

I am a bit unsure about this comp, they don't have a website and when someone asked them about the delivery on another item they had listed on their facebook page they said delivery was dependant on location.

They are based in Livingston, West Lothian, so you could end up having to to pay for delivery or you may have to collect it in my opinion.

Plus, it seems an enormous prize to give away as a first competition, especially as they only created the page on 4th November

Great detective work hamster! I'm not surprised in the least it was a scam.

yoeydavis

i know i shouldnt have but just asked how many unlikes they have had , then said "if isaid i lived in the area would you tell me" naughty i know!

tranmereforever

Is it worth reporting to Edwin and the ASA do you think or not worth it?

hamster

With no contact details other than a mobile number I doubt if there is anything Edwin or the ASA can do about it.

The fake competition is annoying but on Facebook it's an occupational hazard. The odds of a small company comp being real are probably no better than 50:50 but it is always worth a punt. I'm more concerned about the whole page looking fake and the fact people seem to be asking how to order the stuff they are advertising.

Westlothians Bargain Appliances is not a registered company, has no website, no email address, no full postal address and only a mobile number for contact. When people ask about items they are told to PM or phone to order stuff.

At the end of the day if nothing arrives the company can just throw away the mobile SIM and abandon the Facebook page. They then have your cash and your debit/credit card details and you have no way of even contacting them.

Since last night they have removed all the dodgy looking e-cigarette ads they had posted, shut down the reviews section which was full of bad reviews and taken off all posts relating to the competition. At first Samantha's profile picture was changed so it was lo-res so more difficult to do a reverse search on. Then she changed her name. Samantha Burns (http://www.facebook.com/samantha.burns.148) is now "Sammy Bi" with a completely new profile picture.

Daza

They have now removed both their page & Samantha Burns page from Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/westlothiansBargainAppliances?fref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/samantha.burns.148

Rossco_Clarko

Daza wrote: »

They have now removed both their page & Samantha Burns page from Facebook

I'm actually wondering what they were up to. I bet it was more of a scam than just the TV e.g. fake products and a bank transfer with no goods delivered. Done some reverse image searching earlier- most of their images are from ebay and the like.

sammi86

As a side note, i tend to avoid FB/Twitter comps of 'small' companies (ie say a hairdressers in Luton for example) as those are the ones who tend to give the prizes to local people so tend to not be worth doing as i can pretty much guess that the prize will go to a local person (or as in this case, if the prize is real/the winner is a real person). So for me small, localised companies are a no go.