HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — With food prices soaring and the average cost of a meal out rising like a fine soufflé, people are looking for good deals on groceries or restaurant dining. And some less-than-scrupulous folks are taking advantage of that knowledge, offering wild discounts or promising coupons for completely free meals. All you have to do is like and/or share the post.
But should you do as they ask and like or share? What could be the harm? Diner beware - let's VERIFY.
THE QUESTION
Are Facebook posts promising coupons in exchange for likes legitimate?
OUR SOURCES
Social media posts from Aldi
Social media posts from Texas Roadhouse
THE ANSWER
No, pages that encourage you to interact with a Facebook post in order to obtain coupons for heavily-discounted food are not genuine, and could potentially expose information you provide and allow other, similar pages to provide equally inaccurate "offers" on your feed.
WHAT WE FOUND
We encountered a "suggested post" on Facebook recently offering a "Free Steak Dinner for Two" at Applebee's. It read that "Instantly after you like you'll receive a complimentary Applebee's voucher for two people."
The image attached to the post includes the Applebee's logo and a picture of a steak dinner with all the trimmings. It also includes a QR code. We pointed an iPhone camera at the post and found that rather than link to Applebee's website, or to the App Store, where we might have downloaded an app, the QR links to the Wikipedia home page.
It turns out you don't actually need to "like" the post to move forward with the supposed deal. The post featured the first comment, also from the original poster, called "Applebee's Club," which featured a sheet of eight coupons, all reading "Dinner for 2," and all with QR codes which also pointed to irrelevant websites. Another red flag we noticed about the image of the vouchers is that an older version of the Applebee's logo was used. This comment says that you must click a link to claim your voucher, which clearly points to a third-party website and not Applebee's own domain - another red flag.
We pressed on and clicked the link, which points you to a page hosted on Google Sites, consisting only of a picture of a hamburger and a button reading "Claim Voucher."
At this point, we stopped clicking out of security concerns. Doing more research, we found that Texas Roadhouse was warning customers back in 2021 about similar Facebook posts targeted toward their customers. They said that an "account is attempting to gain access to personal information." Texas Roadhouse also said at the time that all posts related to offers or specials will always come from their verified account, notated on Facebook with a blue checkmark icon, which is a good tip for anyone on the hunt for restaurant deals of their own, regardless of brand.
No-frills grocer Aldi has been fighting against phony coupons on social media for more than a decade. We found multiple Facebook posts over the years telling people that coupons offering 40% or more off a bill or a "$75 gift coupon" are worthless at the registers.
"We don't offer electronic coupons and they won't be accepted at our stores," Aldi posts said. Yet, they appear perennially, trying to tempt thrift-hungry shoppers to like and download.
So, we found that the risks of trying to get hold of these "too good to be true" coupons run from mild embarrassment to potentially a personal identification information leak. But even interacting with a post from an unverified account has its risks: within a half hour of our examination of the "Applebee's Club" post, we received a "Suggested for you" post from a so-called "Dunkin Club," offering virtually the same thing in the same way. This post offers a "free box of 12 donuts," requiring an immediate like in order for you to receive the voucher. It also included a QR code that pointed to Wikipedia.
As Aldi and Texas Roadhouse have asked, you should immediately report posts offering these types of deals to Facebook so they can be moderated and purged.
Editor's note: We reached out to media relations representatives for both Applebee's and Dunkin' for comment on this story but did not hear back.