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[green-label]Claim:[/green-label] The Powerball and Mega Million lottery games are giving away $1 million to people who share a message on Facebook. [dot-false]False[/dot-false]
[green-label]Example:[/green-label] [green-small][_Collected via e-mail, October 2015_][/green-small] > Powerball and mega million to give away 1 million dollars online. Is > this
true? [green-label]Origins:[/green-label] In mid-October 2015, social media postings began touting that the Mega Millions and Powerball lottery games were giving away $1 million to people
who shared a Facebook message: > These posts were nothing more than variants of the long-running sweepstakes scam, which has previously targeted customers of such entities as Walmart,
Home Depot, and Publix. Each of these scams exhibits slight variations, but they all seek to reach a larger audience by requiring people to share the scam with their friends on Facebook.
While these charlatans promise that sharing, liking, or commenting on a given Facebook post will make a person a millionaire, what Facebook users who fall for the come-ons are really doing
is spreading a malicious scam to more and more potential victims: > Don't believe what you see. It's easy to steal the colors, logos and > header of an established
organization. Scammers can also make links > look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come > from a different sender. > > Legitimate businesses do not ask
for credit card numbers or banking > information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal > information, like an address or email, be sure there's a link to > their
privacy policy. > > Watch out for a reward that's too good to be true. If the survey is > real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive > a small
discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford > to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. Several state lotteries have warned their players against Facebook
scams: If you want to win the Mega Millions or Powerball lottery games, your best method for achieving that goal is to actually go out and buy a ticket. Of course, some might consider that
approach scarcely better than doing nothing, since the odds of winning $1 million in Powerball are less than 1 in 11 million. [article-meta] [green-label]Last updated:[/green-label] 15
October 2015 [green-label]Originally published:[/green-label] 15 October 2015