Fake Alton Towers giveaway shared thousands of times

A post on Facebook claiming that people can get six free tickets for Alton Towers in return for sharing and commenting on the post has been shared more than 7,000 times. But this isn’t a genuine offer from the theme park. 

The post says: “We know times aren't always easy here @ Alton Towers so we wanted to do something extra special for you all. We'll be sending everyone one of these coupon sheets containing lots of goodies, to get one we'll just need you to §hare+Çomment within the next 7 days from now [sic].” 

This is accompanied by a picture of what appears to be six coupons for the theme park, consisting of two adult tickets, two child tickets and two fast track tickets. 

These are not genuine coupons, and the claims about “goodies” in return for social media interactions are false. 

A spokesperson for Alton Towers told Full Fact the Facebook account sharing the post was “not associated” with the theme park and that “the offer is not something that we have collaborated with them on”. 

They added that they had reported the page to Facebook and were working to get it removed. 

It is always worth checking posts that claim to be offering deals that seem too good to be true. One way to be sure an offer is genuine is by looking to see whether it has been shared by the company’s official page—this will often have more followers, a verified blue tick on Facebook and a longer post history.

The page behind the Alton Towers giveaway was only set up on 17 April and has just over 9,000 followers. In contrast, the official page for the resort has 1.3 million followers and has been active since 2007. 

The post is very similar to other Alton Towers giveaways we have checked recently, which have falsely claimed to be making eight free passes available to people who share and comment. 

Posts like these are extremely common on Facebook, often generating thousands of shares, and we have recently fact checked a number of them which have appeared in the form of coupons for businesses such as Aldi and Toby Carvery. 

Other fake deals supposedly from popular retailers offering goods at a significant discount are also very widely shared on social media, and we have written about them many times before.