The other day while catching up on social media, I came across a bizarre ad on Facebook. It claimed there was a survey hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods that would give you a fancy cooler backpack for free.
Given this particular Yeti backpack usually goes for $350, I was intrigued. There’s no way this could be legitimate and, despite living in the age of AI slop ads, the ad copy didn’t immediately feel like slop.
Maybe there was something here…
Down the rabbit hole
The very first thing I noticed when clicking through to the survey1Using a completely separate browser instance not linked to any of my personal information, passwords, or credit cards of course… was the expiration timer. Apparently this free cooler offer was only good for 15 minutes.
Unless, of course, you refresh the page. Then you get another 15 minutes. This is your first clue that the offer is bogus.
The other sign, which I should’ve noticed immediately, is that the site isn’t hosted by Dick’s at all. It’s on a new warehouse-outlet.site website. I’m now very suspicious …
Next I saw popups claiming folks were redeeming the offer. Only by their first name and state, which was even more suspect.
View source
I’m a developer, which means I poke far deeper than needed. Which means a right-click and “view source.” This lets me see the entire HTML markup of the site as well as any embedded Javascript.
And oh was this enlightening.
First, the popups are entirely bogus – they’re hard-coded into the source with fake names, locations, and even the time as which folks purportedly redeemed their offer.
Second, the timer is, in fact, just a 15 minute countdown from whenever the site was loaded. In short, this whole thing is bogus.
What’s the point?
If you were to click through to do the survey … it’s bogus. Just a bunch of animated buttons that do nothing real. No feedback is submitted. Nothing is collected. Neither Dick’s nor even the malicious actors who built the site will know what you said.
The final click, though, redirects to yet another site asking for your credit card information to cover the $9.99 purchase of the $350 cooler.
Yes. It’s too good to be true.
Known scams
This is actually a well-known scam. It was reported widely in media back in June but seems to still be going on.
I’ve taken the time to report the involved domains to their registars and hosts:
- Facebook for the ad itself
- Hostinger for the initial link that’s posted on Facebook
- Namecheap for the site where the first link redirects
- Tucows for the site hosting the fraudulent credit card forms
With luck, these sites will be taken down shortly. But I’m sure the fraudsters will just post another one tomorrow. And another. And another. It never ends.
With modern AI tools they make the ads look legitimate. As well as the comments on the posts that claim it’s real and that real humans received the supposed product in the ad.
Think rationally, though. Even if the offer were real there’s zero chance someone filled out the form and received their brand new, near free backpack in just a few days for zero shipping.
AI is getting smarter, and criminals are getting smarter through using AI to perpetrate these scams. Be sure to pay attention and always work to protect yourself!
- 1Using a completely separate browser instance not linked to any of my personal information, passwords, or credit cards of course… ↩︎