claim: Pizza Hut is giving three free pizzas away to Facebook users in honor of its 58th anniversary.
origin: In October 2017, multiple versions of a dubious post titled â€œPizza Hut is giving 3 FREE Large Pizza Coupon on their 58th Anniversaryâ€ circulated on Facebook. The link lead to suspicious domains including pizzahutfree.us,Â pizzahut.com-freezones.us,Â pizzahut.com-freezones.us, and massiveoffers.xyz/p/, none of which followed the proper formatting for a pizzahut.com subdomain, which is â€œlink.pizzahut.com.â€ Those who clicked through found a page that looked somewhat legitimate, but showed signs of being aÂ very common survey scam. Users were first asked a series of questions: The page followed a common scammer template of appropriating Pizza Hutâ€™s logo and Facebookâ€™s visual interface, but sloppily boasted that entrants had â€œa chance to get [a] Papa [Johnâ€™s] Coupon.â€ Any interaction with the prompts (again mentioning Papa Johnâ€™s 58th anniversary, not Pizza Hutâ€™s) led to a screen encouraging potential victims to spread the scam further on Facebook: Underneath the â€œCongratulationsâ€ interface was a series of what appeared to be comments from real Facebook users whoâ€™d successfully redeemed the purported coupon. All of the profiles featured were for individuals with jobs displayed as â€œMD, at the Hospitalâ€: Pizza Hut addressed a previous flood of customer queries on their Facebook wall during a similar scam in May 2016: < Donâ€™t believe what you see. Itâ€™s easy to steal the colors, logos and header of an established organization. Scammers can also make links look like they lead to legitimate websites and emails appear to come from a different sender. Legitimate businesses do not ask for credit card numbers or banking information on customer surveys. If they do ask for personal information, like an address or email, be sure thereâ€™s a link to their privacy policy. When in doubt, do a quick web search. If the survey is a scam, you may find alerts or complaints from other consumers. The organizationâ€™s real website may have further information. Watch out for a reward thatâ€™s too good to be true. If the survey is real, you may be entered in a drawing to win a gift card or receive a small discount off your next purchase. Few businesses can afford to give away $50 gift cards for completing a few questions. >