If You’re Going To Rig A Sweepstakes, Don’t Give The Prize To Your Facebook Admin

This Twitter update has screengrabs of the Facebook page before it was taken down.

This Twitter update has screengrabs of the Facebook page before it was taken down.

For some reason, some people are still convinced that Facebook “likes” are some sort of currency and will do just about anything to get them. For example, the jewelry store that is now being accused of rigging a sweepstakes and then accidentally outing its misdeeds online.

Per this report on her.ie, the store, located in Northern Ireland, had been running a contest through its Facebook page wherein all you needed to do in order to win a diamond ring was like and share a particular photo.

It apparently received thousands of likes and the store claimed that the winner was selected at random from among the Facebook fans. There was even a photo of the happy winner and her husband posing with the ring and some champagne.

But then, when the winner began chatting back and forth with other people who had entered the contest, her responses suddenly began appearing under the company’s Facebook account. This would seem to imply that the winner is someone with admin access to the store’s Facebook page.

“Sorry I hit the wrong link,” reads a reply — still in the name of the store — to questions about how this “winner” was now responding via the store’s account.

The account has since been pulled down, though there is still a Facebook link on the store’s homepage.

(Yes, this is the second story today about a company reportedly deleting its Facebook account in the midst of a social media oopsy; maybe that’s the new trend for the new year?)

Thanks to Amaras for the tip!

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