Southwest Warns Customers About Facebook Scam

Well, it’s not along the lines of the email fraud of a prince promising you $25 million if you help him get money moved from his country to your bank account.

Nonetheless, Southwest Airlines has jumped in to help prevent a social media scam involving free tickets on the carrier.

The Dallas-based airline is warning customers that it is not behind a Facebook giveaway of free tickets to celebrate Southwest’s birthday.

According to the Dallas Morning News, a Facebook account known as “Southwest Air Fans” is claiming to give away a pair of free tickets on the airline if posters on the thread reply by first “liking” the post and then following a link to enter the sweepstakes.

Once at the link, the website says it is sponsored by a company called Compliance Sweepstakes Services and promotes itself as having “100% Legal, Safe, and Secure Giveaways.” It then asks you to register by answering a series of questions with the promise of receiving tickets within five to seven days in order to celebrate Southwest’s 69th anniversary.

The airline just turned 51 years old last year.

The Southwest Air Fans Facebook page alone should be the first giveaway, as it looks unprofessional and uses a sophomoric graphic with the Southwest color scheme as its only photo. The page was also just created on Sunday, May 22.

“Many of you may have seen this post from a fake account claiming to offer two roundtrip tickets,” Southwest posted on its own officikal Facebook page. “While we like great flight deals as much as the next airline, this one is unfortunately not real, and wasn’t posted by Southwest Airlines.”

Southwest Airlines reported the scam to Facebook.