Fact Check

Free JetBlue Tickets Scam

"Any contest or sweepstakes JetBlue runs would be hosted on an official JetBlue channel."

Published April 26, 2012

Claim:
JetBlue is giving away free air tickets to Facebook users.

Scams purporting to offer free air travel tickets on JetBlue to those who follow, like, and share particular links have periodically been spread via Facebook:

Those who go in search of the promised freebies reach Facebook look-alike pages bearing embedded countdown counters that helpfully show rapidly reducing numbers of tickets to be had.

But there are no free tickets to be had — JetBlue is not giving away pairs of air travel tickets.

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The web pages the hopeful recipients are led to (which are not operated or sponsored by JetBlue) ask the unwary to repost the message in their profiles and click "like" buttons to claim the promised pair of tickets. From there they are redirected to another page asking for their e-mail addresses, then led through a web of proffered deals (which according to their posted Terms and Conditions require those about to be duped and three friends complete a total of 11 "reward offers").

JetBlue has warned their customers about such scams via social media:

It needs to be kept in mind that personal data (name, date of birth, phone numbers, address) submitted via such forms will be shared with other marketers and/or scammers.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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