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A FACEBOOK POST claiming that customers can get backpacks from retailer Decathlon for a fraction of the retail cost is a scam.
The post on Facebook is from an account named Claire O’Sullivan, who claims to be a content creator and mother based in Ireland.
In the post, the account claims that she was fired from Decathlon and was revealing that customers can “actually get The North Face backpack from Decathlon for just a few euro”, and that employees were told not to tell customers.
“There’s a hidden section on their website. You answer a few silly questions – and the backpack is yours! They’re doing this to clear out leftover stock by the end of the month before launching the new collection,” the account states.
I’ll drop the link in the comments. Check it out while the page is still live – and make sure to share it with your mates. Be honest – if you found out about something like this first, would you stay quiet.
An image shared with the post shows a North Face backpack and a hand holding a receipt with “€2.35″ written on it.
The account then links to a website in the comments of the post that is not the official Decathlon website, but has a domain name linked to Russia.
The post has received hundreds of reactions and comments, mostly of accounts claiming to have followed the advice and saying they received a cheap backpack.
It is clear that the post is a scam for a number of reasons. Firstly, the link is not the official Decathlon Ireland website (www.decathlon.ie) or any website linked to the company.
Secondly, as is clear from Decathlon’s website, they do not stock North Face products, so the company having a cheap North Face product for sale is highly unlikely.
The account that posted on Facebook claims to be a digital content creator, however it only has 14 followers and was created on 18 June of this year.
A reverse image search on Google shows that the account has stolen images from a popular lifestyle account on Instagram with over 30,000 followers and has passed them off as its own.
All of the accounts commenting under the post are also new and have very few friends and interactions, a clear sign that they are fraudulent.
The Journal has approached Decathlon for comment.
The Journal has previously debunked similar scams, including ones that falsely said Dublin Airport is clearing out its warehouse by selling off unclaimed suitcases, as well as about “mystery boxes” supposedly being sold by Currys. The Journal has also debunked a similar scam promoting a sale on “lost parcels”.
The Journal has also debunked scams on Facebook featuring edited photos and videos of celebrities supposedly getting into trouble for revealing cryptocurrency schemes, as well as scam missing persons posts that used real images of dead people and injured children.
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