Fake News-Too Good To Be True?
A few days ago, I saw a shared post by a friend on Facebook about Walmart giving away Walmart gift-bags full of goods and a 75 dollar Walmart voucher to celebrate Walmart going plastic-free. Those who share the post and comment by March 24th before 7 will get one, of course after validating their information. At that time, I didn’t notice anything weird with that post as Walmart will most likely go in that direction eventually. Until I read an article a few days about it being a scam. It makes me question my judgment on what’s real and not as well as how many people believe it.
My friend whose names I should not expose must have believed it at that time since he/she did share the post. Looking into that topic, the news started when someone made a fake Walmart page on Facebook and fabricated information about a 60th-anniversary giveaway. Most likely getting influence by the post where official Walmart announce on Feb 21 that they are reducing the use of plastic bags as part of the “Beyond the Bag Challenge”. Although that news was announced, Walmart did not say they will ban plastic bags from all Walmart stores.
This type of news where free stuff is given out is too good to be true. It is almost like if Disney is giving us free flight or if Bill Gates wants to give you money cause he rich. The chance of that happening for it to be true is slim, very slim. Not reading into the post by the fake Walmart page was why I most likely thought it was true. If I were to inspect the images, the Walmart logo looks photoshopped. I guess it’s a lesson to examine the information before believing everything you see especially if something is too good to be true.
The fake Walmart page on Facebook is no longer there as I am unable to find the link to it. My guess is that it was reported and flag to be a scam which causes Facebook to remove it. Though it would have been interesting if I were able to see how many people share that content or believe it was legit.
The link below is the news article I mention above where I realize the information I saw on Facebook was fake. It is a news article where “Walmart warns customers against fake social media giveaway”.
https://www.wavy.com/news/scams/walmart-warns-customers-against-fake-social-media-giveaway/
