Beware the New Aldi Scam that’s Being Passed Around Tyler, Texas

The internet can be a great place. Lots of shopping, lots of sites that will make you laugh, sites where you can even play video games. But the internet is also a not so great place with lots of places set up for the sole purpose of stealing your personal information. One way thieves do this is by offering you something that looks and sounds awesome better known as a scam. A new one is being passed around East Texas with a pretty enticing, and very fake, offer from Aldi.

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A Facebook page called Aldi Fans is giving out a very pretty looking gift bag full of "Christmas essentials" with 100 of those gift bags containing a $500 voucher.

• 100 Gift Bags times $500 equals $50,000

That's a helluva prize total. To get this gift bag with the possibility of a $500 voucher (notice it doesn't say to Aldi, just "$500 voucher") all you have to do is share the post to five groups. Once "verified", the bag will be shipped to you.

Hmmmm. Okay.

Many people commented that they would love to have one of these bags. Under each comment was this response:

Hello (whoever commented), Your entry is almost complete! You still need to complete the validation process first. To do this simply share this post with 5 active groups you are in. Once finished we need 24 hours to check everything. Thanks and Good Luck

My guess is, whoever set this "prize" up, once "verified," will use Facebook Messenger to send you a link to fill out your information. That is when your information gets stolen.

Here's how to tell this is not a legit Aldi giveaway. First, it would be coming from the official Aldi Facebook page which would have the blue checkmark beside the name. This is from Facebook to show it is the real business's page. Second, look at when the page was created, December 27, 2021. I'm writing this on December 28. This page is only a day old. And third, there is only one post on this page. Whoever set this up didn't even take the time to add a cover photo.

Always follow the saying, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. And hey, you may share this to five pages, get the link, fill out the information and receive a gift bag in the mail (that wasn't one of the lucky 100 to have a $500 voucher in it). Great. But you've possibly just given someone your name, address, phone number, maybe social security number and other pieces of personal information to someone so they can use it to steal your identity.

My mom had her identity stolen using other methods about 20 years ago. It took her several years to get it all cleaned up. Something shiny and pretty like this is not worth that hassle. Don't fall for it.