A message circulating on WhatsApp and Facebook in Nigeria claims Coca-Cola is giving away airtime and data.
“COCA COLA IS CELEBRATING 70YEARS IN NIGERIA ANNIVERSARY WITH FREE 5K AIRTIME VOUCHER AND 10GB FREE DATA FOR ALL NETWORKS,” the poorly written message reads.
“Hurry Now And Check If Your account Is Eligible to Recieve Reward, I just got mine foreward to others groups.”
It links to coca-anniversary-rewards.blogspot.com, a site developed with Google’s free Blogger service.
The message then provides several links for MTN, 9mobile, Glo, Airtel and Mac OS network users to supposedly access the promised airtime and data.
But is this a genuine offer from Coca-Cola?
Protect your personal information
The message’s first link, to coca-anniversary-rewards.blogspot.com, lands on a crudely designed and error-ridden website. This and the fact that Coca-Cola, a multibillion-dollar global business, is unlikely to use a free blogging service for its marketing campaign, is a sign that the site is dodgy.
The site asks the user to enter their phone number and network provider, and then to share the page on WhatsApp as one of two steps supposedly required to get the free airtime and data.
The message’s following network user links – for MTN, Airtel and so on – all land on pages with the URL zeroquiz.com. The pages are suspiciously similar to Facebook’s login page, and ask for the user’s email and password.
It’s highly likely that this is a scam attempting to hack people’s Facebook accounts and so steal valuable personal information.
Coca-Cola has launched celebrations to mark its 70 years in Nigeria. Details of the events can be found on Coca-Cola Nigeria’s official Facebook and Instagram pages.
But none of the reports on the celebrations mention an airtime and data giveaway, or the sites coca-anniversary-rewards.blogspot.com or zeroquiz.com.
The message is a dangerous scam.
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