IF you've been on Facebook over the weekend, it's very likely you saw a post being shared where you could win a Center Parcs holiday.

It was shared across the social networking site tens of thousands of times.

But trading standards have revealed it's a scam.

In a post on Facebook, Wiltshire Trading Standards said: "We've noticed lots of people sharing posts to win a Center Parcs holiday.

"This is a page set up by scammers for 'like-farming' and no one EVER wins a prize. Like farming is a technique used by scammers to get many likes and shares.

"Once enough have been obtained they will edit the post and may add something malicious such as malware or will strip back the original content and fill your page with spam.

"These pages can also harvest personal information Facebook holds about you."

Leigh Journal:

The scam Facebook post

How can I avoid scam Facebook posts?

  • Before sharing these posts take some time to check the page is genuine
  • A genuine business will have a small blue tick next to their name to show the page has been verified.
  • How far back to the posts on their page go? (This page was only set up 8 hours ago. The genuine Center Parcs page goes back years.)
  • How many likes do they have? 

The genuine Center Parcs UK page currently has over 369,000.

The scam page currently only has 29,000.

But that's more than 29,000 who have all put their personal information at risk in only 8 hours.