Sorry, Sharpie is NOT Giving Everyone Free Markers – Debunked

For the past few days, Facebook users from far and wide have been sharing a link claiming popular marker maker, Sharpie, is giving everyone who shares the link a free 24 pack of markers to celebrate their 13th anniversary. And once again, I'm here to tell you that's not the case.

I swear when I debunk these things, I'm not trying to be some kind of holier-than-thou a-hole who's trying to prove he's smarter than everyone else by doing a little research, but when I see person after person blindly share something that sends my BS detector into the stratosphere, I feel like I need to educate everyone so they'll stop sharing it.

Don't get me wrong, if someone said, "Here, take this 24-pack of Sharpies free of charge and go crazy," I'd snatch them from their hand in a heartbeat and color everything I saw. But the likelihood of that happening in person is about as good as it happening on Facebook, which is to say slim-to-none.

According to popular internet myth busting website, Snopes.com, the Sharpie scam has been living on Facebook since February of this year.

But I didn't need Snopes to figure it out. The proof this isn't officially affiliated with Sharpie is right in the link description.

See the web address highlighted in yellow? It looks good until you get to that "GRABITQUICKLY.COM" part. They try to fool you by throwing the "SHARPIE.COM" at the beginning. More times than not, if a company is legitimately giving you the chance to win a product, trip, whatever, the web address will be directly to their website.

Another thing that caught my untrusting eye was the "13th Anniversary" part. While it's not unheard of for companies to celebrate odd numbered anniversaries in an effort to be wacky and unpredictable, typically sizable prize giveaways such as this are reserved for the 15, 20, 25, 50 year celebrations.

Oh, and speaking of Sharpie's 13th anniversary, a quick Google search and some simple math let's me know that celebration took place in 1870.

Need more proof? How about you get it straight from the horse's mouth.

If you fell for it, and shared it with your friends, don't feel bad, even the smartest people get fooled from time to time. Just remember for future reference, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

[Source: Snopes.com]