Facebook ‘free meal’ at Harvester offer is not official

A post on Facebook with more than 12,000 shares and appearing to be from the restaurant chain Harvester claims that anyone who shares and comments will get a free meal for two.

The post says: “Here at Harvester we want to show you we care as we know times haven't been easy this year so we have decided that everybody who $hares&¢omments [sic] in the 21 day time frame from now will be rewarded with a 𝐹𝑅𝐸𝐸 meal for two which can be used at Breakfast, lunch or dinner at any location.”

The page sharing this is not the official Harvester one. This page is called “Harvester Restaurants” and has almost 4,000 likes and over 9,000 followers. The real Harvester Facebook page (which is not verified but is linked to from the Harvester website) has just under 300,000 likes and 289,000 followers.

Mitchells & Butlers, the parent company of Harvester, confirmed to Full Fact that the post’s offer was not affiliated with the restaurant.

A spokesperson for Harvester said: “We are aware of a post circulating social media claiming to offer a free meal for two at Harvester for those who share the same post, and we can confirm this is a fake post not originated by Harvester. To be confident guests are taking advantage of genuine great deals and promotions from Harvester we recommend they download our app or sign up to our newsletter, together with fully investigate [sic] any offers made through third parties.”

The page which shared the hoax post is responding to some users who do comment, saying they have been sent a “complimentary voucher” via Facebook Messenger. It is important to be careful about opening any links or attachments sent to you by an unknown or unverified source.

We’ve written previously about Facebook pages making very similar false claims about giveaways from Toby Carvery, as well as other companies such as Wetherspoons and Greggs, as part of our work fact checking online misinformation.

Image courtesy of TR Wolf