Sigh. Another day, another Facebook scam in my feed, this time promising Dell laptops for as little as $2 from JB HiFi
tldr version: This is a scam, don’t click on any suspicious links, remember to brush your teeth, have a nice day.
Slightly longer version: Browsing my Facebook feed this morning, I hit upon this supposedly sponsored post, apparently from major Australian electronics retailer JB Hi-Fi:
There’s a lot going on here. A lot that is wrong. URL blurred, because why promote scam URLs?
So, yeah, this is 100%, absolutely a scam. Even if JB Hi-Fi was selling off “damaged stock”, there’s no way their accountants would be happy with them doing so for $2 PER LAPTOP. Straight away, it’s failing the old “if it looks too good to be true” test.
But there’s more. That doesn’t look a whole hell of a lot like any JB Hi-Fi I’ve ever been into; while the warehouse aesthetic isn’t totally wrong, the lack of HUGE YELLOW PRICE STICKERS on everything else around the photo is.
I’m guessing that this is a photo taken in one of the bigger US retailers, not that they were likely selling $2 laptops either. Although they do appear to have been selling cutlery, something I don’t think I’ve EVER seen on sale in JB Hi-Fi.
Update: It’s been pointed out to me that the original photo is from a Walmart; not a chain we have in Australia at all. Hat tip to Kate for that one.
Then, well, there’s the fact that the pricing info is very obviously in the wrong font and photoshopped on after the fact. Gee… maybe that’s because it’s a SCAM.
Also, JB Hi-Fi sells many things, from Hi-Fi equipment to CDs, Blu-Rays to games, Vinyl records to Pop Vinyls and indeed laptops. But women’s clothing as their primary identifier? Hardly. I mean, I guess they sell T-Shirts, and women are indeed free to wear T-Shirts if they so wish. But still…
Then there’s the fact that it’s using a URL shortener for the actual link — which I’ve obscured, just in case anyone got curious. Of course it’s not going to JB Hi-Fi, not even close, but I suspect you knew that. A reputable business would want to sell its brand and URL wherever it could, whereas scammers hide in the darkness.
It’s also got a whole host of “comments” below it, talking about how they received their laptops. SPOILER: That’s part of the scam too, because it makes it seem like maybe, if you act fast, you could score a sweet $2 laptop.
You will not, in case it wasn’t clear, be scoring a sweet $2 laptop. You’ll almost certainly be out more than that financially, as well as potential identity theft, so do not do it.
To its credit, JB Hi-Fi is aware that its customers may be the victims of scams — it has a decent scams alert page here — although these seem to be more SMS and giveaway scams, not this type.
Also read:
Please don’t fall for this MyGov Scam
You know what else annoys me about this? It’s sponsored, which means that not only are the scammers trying to make money from it, but Facebook has approved it going up and made money doing so.
I did try to report it, but the page itself refreshed just after I’d screenshotted it and (as is the style with Facebook these days) it vanished entirely.
With luck, maybe, just maybe, Facebook noticed that it was abhorrent and removed it. But I have my doubts. In any case, just in case it wasn’t clear, no, there’s no cheap laptops to be had today.
Just cheap scams.
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