Countdown Claims that the E-mails Awarding Cash to Respondents are Bogus

To complete a survey about Countdown, an email is awarding cash rewards, a supermarket store in New Zealand, is actually a scam. The Countdown Company denies this as reported in their official website odt.co.nz on November 28, 2012. The survey was not dispersed across the country on Monday (November 26, 2012).

The scam emails says: "Taking the holidays into account are coming, Countdown has decided to award them a cash bonus to all persons who are being held at Countdown Supermarkets for shopping.

The email carries a logo of the Countdown Company and claims that the supermarket chain will increase $A50 credit to the account of shoppers if they participated in a "quick 5-question survey". It also claims that holders of many cards can execute the survey several times for each card.

The first question asking if the employees are helpful and frank has a spelling mistake. The survey also asks if the supermarket's overall service is satisfying for the customers. The sequence of multi-choice answers depends for each question.

Countable Public Affairs Manager, Luke Schepen said that it was not a legal survey, according to a statement published by odt.co.nz on November 28, 2012.

However, Countdown claims that it will never ask for this level of information online and it suggest people not to pay attention to this survey.

Countdown has warned to the scam when at least 80 people had called to confirm that the email is genuine or not.

However, Schepen was not familiar of anyone who had been "taken advantage of" by the scam.

Consumer NZ Claims that if familiar with the range of phishing scams promising tax refunds and survey scams saying that it is from McDonald's restaurants. Consumer NZ suggests people against sending personal details through email or online, and to omit suspicious emails without answering.

Also, the supermarkets chains are not the first time being targeted by scammers in a phony survey scam email campaign. In September 2012, Internauts were bewared of scam emails and Facebook wall posts supposing from British multination grocery and general Merchandise Company 'TESCO'. Bearing the title: "Customer Satisfaction Survey" the spam emails offered participants a 50 Euro gift certificate, security firm Warned by ESET.

Related article: Canadian Retailer Faces Security Breach of Customer Credit Numbers

» SPAMfighter News - 12/5/2012