Beware: Heineken Father’s Day freebie offer scam

Consumertrics urges beer consumers to disregard a phoney freebie purported to be from Heineken as such is merely a scam.

This warning follows Heineken’s disclaimer of the fake competition that offere consumers free beer for Father’s Day. The message has been circulating on WhatsApp, offering consumers the chance to win one of 5,000 coolers full of lager.

The advert comes with links to a fake quiz-style competition, which we agree with the beer producers to be a phishing scam.

“We’re aware of the current phishing scam circulating through social networks, which is not sanctioned by Heineken. We have alerted the relevant authorities,” the beer producers said on its website.

Consumertrics is concerned about growing attacks by hackers on consumers using phishing scams.

Phishing is a way of tricking someone into clicking a malicious link, which gives a hacker access to personal information of a victim, like bank details.

Credit: BBC, with additional information from Consumertrics