In late May 2021, postings on social media promoted a purported 84th-anniversary sale for Ray-Ban sunglasses. The offer of 90% off supposedly only lasted for 24 hours. Ray-Ban sunglasses cost hundreds of dollars, so such a sale would mean huge savings for consumers.
This was not a legitimate offer from Ray-Ban. It is a dangerous scam. It's been going around for several years, including on Tumblr.
How the Scam Works
Tweets that promoted the scam read: "Friends, the surprise is coming. Are you interested?" They appeared to involve phishing attempts that pulled follower names from a user's follower list. This caused the scam to virally spread.
The scammers appeared to gain access to social media accounts after users visited the dangerous website that appeared in this image:
We strongly advise against visiting the website. Providing information to scammers could lead to identity theft and other harmful outcomes.
The Fake 'Official' Website
While the image did say that the scam website was Ray-Ban's "official website," this was false.
The 5-letter website that appeared in the social media postings began with "rb," as in "rb---.com." We have removed the last three letters from the website address so as to not encourage readers to visit the fake website.
This was not an official Ray-Ban website. The official Ray-Ban website is ray-ban.com. The company is owned by Luxottica.
As of June 1, 2021, the official Ray-Ban Twitter account had not tweeted about the resurgence of the anniversary sale scam. However, a search for past tweets showed other 5-letter scam websites that also began with "rb---.com," except with other combinations of three letters following "rb."
Anniversary Sale Scams
Scammers have often used the ploy that major companies (like Ray-Ban) are having anniversary sales in order to trick consumers into falling into the trap.
We've reported on a seemingly endless number of these scams in the past. For example, Aldi, Tim Hortons, Taco Bell, and Walmart have all been used in anniversary sale scams, to name a few.
We've even seen vacation scams on Facebook for getaways to Bora Bora and Las Vegas that may have tricked people into sharing the fake giveaways.
In sum, Ray-Ban nor Luxottica is not offering 90% off sunglasses for 24 hours for its 84th anniversary, or any anniversary.