We're getting to the point where the "Don't Believe Everything You See on Facebook" file is going to need its own cabinet.

The latest entry involves a Facebook post by a fake account attempting to pass itself off as the Kroger chain of grocery stores. The post published this past Sunday (December 22nd, 2019) says "To celebrate Christmas this year we are giving a special gift of an entire year of free groceries to four lucky families that share/comment by 12:00pm Sunday! Best of luck and Happy Holidays!" Here's what it looks like:

Looks pretty official, right? I mean, there's the Kroger logo as their profile picture, and there's photos of what appears to be Kroger employees bagging groceries at a Kroger store. Whoever threw this together did a pretty convincing job of making the offer look legit. But, there's one thing that raises a red flag, the name of the page.

The page is called, "Kroger.com." Granted, it's not unheard of for a company to list their website as their page name to remind people where to find them online, but that's not the case here. The actual Kroger Facebook page is simply called, "Kroger."

There are a few other ways you can tell this is a fake account. Ways you can apply to other accounts that are offering something that may sound too good to be true.

  1. There's no blue check mark next to the name. A blue check mark means Facebook has verified that the account was created by and belongs to the actual business.
  2. The number of likes is low. The Kroger.com account lists just over 800 people follow the page while the actual Kroger account lists over 1.6 million.
  3. The page has little to no posts. A quick scroll down the Kroger.com account shows four total, one of which being the fake giveaway. The other three are the addition of a profile picture, a cover photo, and how you can message them through Facebook Messenger. Oh, and all four were posted on December 22nd, the same day as the fake giveaway.

Kroger does have three locations in Owensboro, and if you didn't know, they also own an operate the Ruler Foods chain of stores that has several locations in Evansville, Newburgh, and Henderson.

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[Source: USA Today]

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