WASHINGTON — QUESTION:
Is Southwest Airlines giving away 500 free round-trip tickets to people who comment and share on the post?
ANSWER:
No
SOURCE:
Southwest Airlines Spokesperson
PROCESS:
Our Verify team checked with Southwest Airlines Facebook page and reach out to its medial relations team.
According to the airline, this viral post has been around for years.
It has the wrong account link and links to a 3rd party website, not Southwest Airlines.
On Southwest Airline's Facebook page, it says "We are aware of the Facebook scam asking you to write on our wall to win free tickets. This is not something hosted by Southwest. We have already reported it and are working as quickly as possible to get to the bottom of it. Sorry for any inconvenience!
A representative from Southwest Airlines' media relation team told WUSA9, "Our social team shared the latest, which I see you have below. Sadly, this is not a novel occurrence and so we have teams who constantly monitor for misrepresentations and quickly address them through protocols established by the social platforms."
The airline added, "On this one, Facebook was alerted by Southwest immediately. Thanks for checking with us."
The official name of the airline is Southwest Airlines
If you closely at the fake Facebook page, you will notice the company name is "Southwest Air" which is not the company's official name.
Also, the fake page was created on June 15, 2020.
According the the Federal Trade Commission, this is a phishing scam and offers the tips on how to protect yourself from phishing attacks.
Your email spam filters may keep many phishing emails out of your inbox. But scammers are always trying to outsmart spam filters, so it’s a good idea to add extra layers of protection. Here are four steps you can take today to protect yourself from phishing attacks.
1. Protect your computer by using security software. Set the software to update automatically so it can deal with any new security threats.
2. Protect your mobile phone by setting software to update automatically. These updates could give you critical protection against security threats.
3. Protect your accounts by using multi-factor authentication. Some accounts offer extra security by requiring two or more credentials to log in to your account. This is called multi-factor authentication. The additional credentials you need to log in to your account fall into two categories:
Something you have — like a passcode you get via text message or an authentication app.
Something you are — like a scan of your fingerprint, your retina, or your face.
Multi-factor authentication makes it harder for scammers to log in to your accounts if they do get your username and password.
4. Protect your data by backing it up. Back up your data and make sure those backups aren’t connected to your home network. You can copy your computer files to an external hard drive or cloud storage. Back up the data on your phone, too.