“Southwest Airlines giveaway” Facebook scam doing rounds

A new survey scam is targeting Facebook users, misusing the name of well-known Southwest Airlines to supposedly offer two free tickets to any destination within the U.S.

Users who follow the offered bit.ly shortened link will take them to a page that explains that the offer is due to the company celebrating its anniversary (“a decade of Southwest!”).

Unfortunately for the users who take the aforementioned claim at face value and try to claim the tickets, they will be first faced with a doorway page and then redirected to different pages depending on their physical location.

All of a sudden, there is no mention of the free tickets any more – the new “prize” is a new iPad or MacBook Air! They only have to submit their email address and complete registration forms, and allow the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information to third parties for marketing purposes in order to receive “incredible gifts” (click on the screenshot to enlarge it):

Some of the users whose location obviously disqualifies them for receiving any kind of offer (even a bogus one) at all are faced with a generic “search results” page related to online gaming, warns GFI.

“Based on the bit.ly data of the URL, it is highly likely that this scam has been going around since the 14th of this month,” they noted.