Everyone who shares or comments on a Facebook post from a Wetherspoons account is entitled to a free meal for two to celebrate the retirement of the chain’s boss, Tim Martin, who is now handing the business to his son Ryan.
Wetherspoons has confirmed that no such offer from them exists, and the pub chain doesn’t have any official social media accounts.
A Facebook account using the name “Wetherspoons” has shared a post claiming that the pub chain is offering free meals to people who share and comment.
The post has been shared more than 24,000 times at the time of writing, but it is not real. It copies similar posts from other Facebook accounts appearing to impersonate the brand which we’ve fact checked previously.
The post says: “Hello everyone! I’m Tim Martin, founder of Wetherspoons. I'm very pleased to introduce you to my son Ryan Martin. Next week I will be retiring and handing over all control to my eldest Son. Before I depart I’d like to do one last good deed to say thanks because without all of you we wouldn’t be here today. So everyone who shares&comments within the next 7 days will receive a meal for two on us! This can be used for Breakfast, lunch or dinner at any Wetherspoons establishment.”
The image actually shows Tim Martin, and another similar post from the same account features an image of the company’s 2021 appointment of a new general manager for Scotland. Previous versions of the claim showed the then Conservative MP for Workington Mark Jenkinson and an image of Mr Martin with a journalist.
The account, which was set up in March 2022, has also posted another fake voucher with the caption: “This week we're celebrating 44 years of Wetherspoons, so we wanted to treat everyone to a (free) meal for two & drinks. On June 16th, we will reward those who type ‘DONE’.”
A spokesperson for Wetherspoons confirmed that the posts were not genuine offers from the chain, describing them as “absolute twaddle”.
Wetherspoons says on its official website that it doesn’t run any social media pages, adding: “Any profiles promoted on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat are not endorsed or maintained by the company.”
Full Fact has written about similarly fake offers from other brands, including a fake Alton Towers giveaway, free holidays at Center Parcs and free meals at restaurant chains Toby Carvery and Harvester.
It is always worth checking posts sharing offers that seem too good to be true. One way to verify this is to see whether the offer has been shared by the company’s official page—this will often have more followers, a verified blue tick and a longer post history.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Wetherspoons has confirmed that no such offer from the company exists.
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