Date Posted: 02/02/23
NCP Blog: Be Aware of Social Media Scams
Do you use social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? Social media has so many positive aspects: keeping in touch with friends and family, sharing photos, finding out about new things and staying on top of current events.
Unfortunately, there’s a downside as well. Scammers are always out there trying to take advantage of people. We’re seeing an increased number of posts on social media sites about National Consumer Panel that share incorrect information about who we are and what we do.
We try to correct bad information whenever possible, and we appreciate it when panel members let us know about posts with incorrect info!
So, what kinds of bad information do we see? I’ll share some examples.
Examples of Social Media Scams
Here’s a social media scam post we see a lot, and it’s frequently posted in buy, sell and trade groups on Facebook. It usually includes a photo of a fake email, along with a link to a website. The link has usually been shortened with a link shortener like bit.ly, which obscures the actual URL for the website.
Don’t click on links in posts like this! A shortened, obscured URL that accompanies a post that sounds too good to be true will most likely take you to a website you don’t want to go to.
To be fair, not all shortened URLs are bad links. Even NCP uses link shorteners! But when you see them accompany a post like this, don’t click on them.
If you see a post like this, you can report it to the social media site as spam. Or, you can send it to NCP and we’ll work with the social media site to report it and try to get it removed.
Previous Post:
NCP panel members represent consumers all across the country by sharing their shopping experiences and opinions. If you’re not a panel member and you’re interested in joining NCP to share your shopping experiences, earn great rewards, and influence what you see on store shelves, click here or go to the Join NCP section of the blog!