Upscale grocery store Whole Foods Market said on Friday that they are attempting to fight a series of Facebook-based scams involving the company that are using the promise of $500 gift cards to fraudulently gain private information from users.
CNET.com reports that a wave of Facebook pages such as “Whole Foods Market Free $500 Gift Card Limited – first 12,000 fans only” and “Whole Foods FREE $500 Gift Card! Only Available for 36 hours!” have popped up this week, enticing people to become “fans” in exchange for gift cards to Whole Foods. Users who become fans are asked to fill out a bogus “credit assessment” and other forms filled with sensitive personal information.
“Throughout yesterday and this morning, we’ve been alerting them each time we see new ones, and we take them down,” Whole Foods spokesperson Libby Letton told CNET.com. Whole Foods has also been using its Facebook page to alert customers of the fraud and asking them to report new Facebook pages that pop up.