A Facebook page named ‘Marks and Spencer Fans’ shared a post claiming that the Marks and Spencer (M&S) company announced golden ticket giveaways on the occasion of the Christmas. Sharing it as a message from M&S Chief Marketing Officer, Sarah Louise, this post claims that M&S announced golden ticket envelopes to the first 500 people who shared this message in two active groups in the next 24 hours. This post shared a collage of images showing people holding golden ticket envelopes rewarded by M&S Food. According to the post, each rewarded golden ticket envelope will offer a discount of £500 at all M&S shopping stores. Also, a caution note is provided below the post alerting people about impersonators who provide dodgy links and allure fake prizes on the internet. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Marks and Spencer (M&S) announced golden ticket giveaways on the occasion of the Christmas.
Fact: Sharry Cramond is the Chief Marketing Officer of M&S Food, and she did not announce any such ‘Golden Ticket Christmas Giveaway’ recently on any of her social media handles or on the M&S social media handles. There is no Marketing Officer with the name Sarah Louise working at M&S. In 2020, when another fan page of M&S posted similar golden ticket giveaways quoting it as a message from the Manager of M&S, M&S clarified it as a scam. M&S Food did offer golden ticket giveaways to customers in the past during the launch of their new stores in the UK. But lately, they did not announce any such golden ticket giveaways as part of the Christmas celebrations. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched to check whether the Marks and Spencer (M&S) company had announced any such golden ticket giveaways on the occasion of the Christmas, we could not find any such announcements on the official website or on the social media handles of M&S. On observing the photos carefully, one could see the text ‘M&S Food’ on all of the golden ticket envelopes shown in these pictures. In one of these pictures, the text on a golden ticket states, “We’re delighted to welcome you to our M&S NEWARK MALTINGS.” And in another picture, it was stated that the golden ticket was valid till 04 October 2018. So, it can be concluded that the pictures show old golden ticket envelopes issued by M&S Food.
When we searched for further details, we found that the present Marketing Director of M&S Food is Sharry Cramond. Lately, Sharry Cramond did not announce any such Golden Ticket Christmas Giveaway on any of her social media handles. In the latest press release issued related to the Christmas Food Advertisement and the 2022 campaign for Christmas shopping, M&S did not announce any such golden ticket giveaways as part of the Christmas celebrations. These press releases can be seen here and here. No Marketing officer by the name of Sarah Louise is working at the M&S company.
In 2020, when a fan page Facebook account of M&S posted similar golden ticket giveaways while quoting it as a message from the Manager of M&S, M&S through a tweet clarified it as a scam message. Several scam alert pages alerted about these fraudulent posts alluring golden ticket giveaways. Even many users in the comment section of the post said that the message is a scam.
The Marks and Spencer (M&S) company offered golden ticket giveaways to the first 200 customers during the launch of their M&S Foodhall stores at Abbey Centre, Archway and other stores in the UK. News articles that reported on these golden ticket giveaways issued by M&S Food can be seen here, here and here. But lately, M&S company did not announce any such golden ticket giveaways as part of the Christmas celebrations.
To sum it up, this purported ‘M&S’ promotional message offering golden ticket giveaways as part of Christmas celebrations is fake.
