IF YOU’RE AN Instagram user, you may have come across an account this morning claiming to be the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
The account asks users to follow, tag it and tag five of their friends – and offers a €500 voucher to the first 20,000 people who do so.
If you hadn’t guessed already, it’s a fake. (Offering €500 each to 20,000 people would be a giveaway of €10million.)
The real Blanchardstown Centre posted on their Facebook this morning:
Hi All, there are 2 fake Blanchardstown Centre Instagram accounts offering prize money to followers. This is a scam, we are investigating it directly to have both accounts shut down. Please do not follow these accounts.
Blanchardstown Centre Management.
One of the accounts appears to have been closed since its launch yesterday. However, the other has gathered more than 2,500 followers.
It has also posted these grammatically-questionable updates:
But that hasn’t stopped people falling for the scam. Reactions so far include:
Would give anything for a voucher!! <3
This would make me 100% sure that shopping is the best therapy of them all
Sweet Jesus I pray
Could do with some summer threads!
Does this really work
And the Instagram search for the #blanchshoppingcentre tag looks like this:
DailyEdge.ie has reached out to the (real) Blanchardstown Shopping Centre for comment.
In the meantime, in case you’re still in any doubt: don’t follow that account.
h/t @darraghdoyle and @CormacComedy
