Is Chick-Fil-A giving away $100 and $50 gift cards in a lottery to people who share and comment on a Facebook post? No, that's not true: It is a scam that sends those who follow the instructions to a dangerous app download link.The scammers earn money for every unsuspecting person who downloads the app, which could take control (hack) their social media accounts. The scammers created a fake Chick-Fil-A Facebook page to boost the scam post through the social platform's sponsored post system.
The scam originated with a post (archived here) published on October 29, 2019 under the title "Chick-Fil-A Giveaways." It opened:
We are giving away 100 $50 gift cards and 50 $100 gift cards. To be eligible to win. Please like, share and comment "Done" when done! Thank you! �dc14
This is what social media users saw:
The scam asks people to "do all the steps," which includes downloading the dangerous app:
TO BE ENTERD DO ALL STEPS
1.) Like and share this post
2.) click the link and Download and open this app for 30 seconds post proof below �dc14 must do this step
Clues that this is a scam include the wrong spelling for "ENTERD." A Chick-Fil-A post would not include such an obvious misspelling.
The "Chick-Fil-A Giveaways" Facebook page was created on October 26, 2019 and has barely 2,000 likes. It is unverified. The real company page is verified and has 8 million likes.
After Lead Stories, a 3rd-party fact checker for Facebook, flags a false post, the ad is taken down. Here is what one version looked like before that happened:
