Ikea voucher worth 500 euros, but the “news” is a scam

To have the money you only need to answer a few simple questions, a pity that everything is false as the Swedish company also confirms. However, many users continue to fall into the trap and the Sant’Antonio chain feeds

An Ikea voucher of 500 euros. And to get there, just answer a few simple questions. Too bad everything is false. Obviously this is a hoax, one of the many chain letters that we are often used to receiving (and most of the time ignored) in WhatsApp. The Swedish Giant in fact, it has already issued an “important communication” reporting his “total strangeness regarding the sending of emails or messages through the WhatsApp Messenger or Facebook Messenger systems having as object ‘Purchase voucher IKEA € 150 ‘,’ € 900 IKEA shopping voucher ‘,’ € 500 IKEA voucher ‘,’ € 75 IKEA 75-year anniversary voucher ‘”.

Good Ikea, be careful not to fall into the trap: what you risk

Many users, however, continue to fall into the trap and the Sant’Antonio chain feeds. “Take our survey to win a € 500 Ikea voucher.” And again: “I thought it was the usual scam and instead I got it!” We read in another of the messages, written in weak Italian. A link will appear below which the user is invited to click. After all, it’s just a matter of answering a few simple questions: “Do you usually shop at Ikea?”, “Have you ever been dissatisfied with one of our products?” and so on.

But, and here comes the beauty, once the survey

is completed, the user is invited to re-launch the deception to 15 friends and acquaintances. In order to take advantage of the elusive voucher, which obviously does not exist, you will also need to leave your email. The risk is seeing your inbox bombarded with spam messages of questionable origin. The possibility of receiving viruses or malware is not excluded either. In short, you better be careful.

Chain of letters on WhatsAapp: who wins it?

According to the site laleggepertutti, it is possible to distinguish two types of chain letters: on the one hand there are the deceptions that refer to a link, such as that of Ikea. In this case, the risk is contracting a virus or having a paid service activated. Or, as in the aforementioned case, to provide our personal data that will then almost certainly be sold to advertisers (or spammers). On the other hand, there are messages that contain alarmist news, which usually have a propaganda function.

WhatsApp and fake news

To overcome this type of problem, WhatsApp is thinking of introducing a service capable of alerting the user when he is in front of a chain of letters. Basically, the messaging application will notify us with a notification that explains that the message has already been “forwarded several times”. Will it be enough to solve the problem of deception?