Several Facebook (FB) netizens posted on May 14 a false claim that public personality Raffy Tulfo has a birthday giveaway, but this redirects users to a scam.
The alleged giveaway, titled “P10,000.00 PARA SAYO! (for you) | RAFFY TULFO IN ACTION,” is fake. It asked people to register on a dubious website.
While the official FB page of Raffy Tulfo in Action did announce on March 2 that Tulfo would give away P10,000 to 120 workers in different sectors to celebrate his 61st birthday on March 12, its mechanics were very different.
The dubious post carried by the website 4P’S LAND BANK (4pslandbankatm2021.blogspot.
The 4P’s LAND BANK set the hyperlink of idolraffyregalo.com to website NEWS AND UPDATE WORLDWIDE (new-updates-worldwide.
Several online users who believed the fake giveaway wrote their name, address, and cellphone numbers in both the FB netizen’s posts and the 4P’S LAND BANK article.
4P’S LAND BANK used the name of the Land Bank of the Philippines, a government financial institution. It also used the term 4Ps, which refers to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, a conditional cash transfer program of the DSWD.
The impostor site was created by a Blogger profile named PHILSYS NATIONAL ID, which also handles 13 other websites that post bogus giveaways and sensationalized news headlines. The Blogger profile was created in February 2021.
Both the FB post and the sketchy online article used a thumbnail with a green background and image of Tulfo. Its text read: “DAHIL BIRTHDAY KO LAHAT NG MAG-MEMESSAGE SAKIN MAY P10,000.00 NA AYUDA! | GUSTO MO BA NG P10,000.00 (Because it’s my birthday, everyone who messages me gets P10,000.000 of financial aid! Do you want P10,000.00)???)
The scam post on website 4P’s LAND BANK got nearly 28,000 FB interactions, and could have been shared to 5.64 million people according to social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle.
It has been shared on FB groups DSWD UPDATE, GIVE AWAY, and DSWD SAP AYUDA UPDATE.
DSWD UPDATE was created in September 2020, and its original name was DSWD 2nd and 3rd Tranche of SAP 4ps Update. GIVE AWAY, which contains scam posts, was originally named HIDDEN PAIN upon its creation in April 2020. DSWD SAP AYUDA UPDATE, originally named PHILIPPINE NATIONAL ID REGISTRATION, was created last March 2021.
(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
Read other interesting stories:
Click thumbnails to read related articles.
