Bizarre Facebook scam offers fake Aldi “meat boxes” for under $10 – but just steals your card details

Malwarebytes warned of a Facebook scam targeting users over 40 with fake Aldi meat box offers
Victims are led through fake landing pages and games before being asked for PII and credit card information
Researchers warn that such posts are designed for phishing and fraud, and urge skepticism of “too good to be true” deals on social media

Security researchers Malwarebytes have warned of an ongoing scam on Facebook that is trying to steal personally identifiable information (PII) as well as credit card data from people aged 40 and over.

In this bizarre scam, a Facebook user (probably a compromised or fake account) claims that people over 40 can get an Aldi meat case for under $10 as long as they fill out a form and sign up for a service.

“Sounds crazy, but it actually worked,” reads the post. “They clear out excess stock and instead of throwing it away, they let people have it for next to nothing. All I did was fill out a short form.”

Spoofing Aldi

This form, the user claims, took about a minute to fill out. They ended the post by saying the worst that could happen is “you lose a minute.”

But according to Malwarebytes’ Pieter Arntz, people can lose a lot more than just a minute of their time. After clicking on the provided link, the researcher was first fingerprinted by his device, after which he was redirected to a fake Aldi landing page.

The page displayed a fake gift box game (like those often seen on Temu) and after “winning” the game (the page is designed so the victim can’t really lose), he was redirected again, this time to a page asking him to provide more details.

The scammers asked for everything: names, addresses, phone numbers and even credit card information to pay for the meat box and faster delivery.

“If a post promises a box of premium meat for the price of a sandwich, assume it’s a scam until you can prove otherwise,” Arntz concluded. He also shared a comprehensive list of red flags found in the post, as well as a checklist on how to make sure you’re not getting scammed on social media.

As with all such online scams – if it seems too good to be true, it probably is – especially with barbecue season still a few weeks away.