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Scammers are constantly using social networks to implement their schemes – this includes hacking accounts and extracting finances from acquaintances whose contacts were stolen from a hacked account's list. They help them gain access to social media resources and enable blackmail after obtaining personal information from a device.
Knowledge of human psychology and cunning calculation allow scammers to gain the victim's trust and extract information from them.
Social Media Scams
Having targeted a victim on social networks, scammers actively begin to work according to their plan. The first thing a scammer tries to do is gain trust, presenting themselves as a communicative, sociable person with diverse development. After this, the scammer moves to the next stage - creating friendly relationships, which takes more than one day and depends on the individual character of the chosen victim. In the next stage, the relationship between the scammer and the victim begins to develop more rapidly. And, having already gained trust and friendship, the scammer can easily convince the opponent to:
- invest finances in cryptocurrency;
- transfer or lend money;
- help arrange a microloan.
In these situations, it is important to understand that there are almost no easy earnings on the internet. Earnings offered on social networks are fraudulent schemes by scammers, and like any job, effort, development, and learning are required.
Scammers also develop the theme of finding victims with proposals to invest in a new startup or online store. These are mostly bubbles that burst upon closer scrutiny.
Phishing on Social Networks
Social networks are an integral part of modern life, they store a large amount of personal information about each person, which is why scammers dream of obtaining such information. In most cases, scammers use phishing. This is a type of attack through which theft of personal data and account credentials occurs in social networks such as Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook.
The advantage of social networks for scammers is that they can communicate without meeting people in the real world. In social networks, hackers easily use the phishing method. Scammers send fake messages, allegedly from social network companies, where they require entering some account details to update the system or confidential information where credit card numbers, passwords are stored.
Scammers on social networks may also offer to make payments for collected followers - this phishing method allows scammers to send messages with convincing information, where they supposedly offer followers for a low price. People reveal their card details, and scammers, without providing a single follower, can easily withdraw funds from the victim's card.
Fraud on Facebook
Facebook is one of the most popular social networks in the world, where people of different ages, professions, and interests communicate and meet. Naturally, scammers also search for their interests there, attracting a large number of people into their networks.
Scammers create fake user pages on Facebook, which they can fill with fake photos and false messages, for example, pretending to be a charitable organization collecting donations to help a sick person. For credibility, photos are created, possibly with the help of artificial intelligence, and card details are provided to which money should be transferred, posing as relatives.
Scammers can also hack an account and, using this, send information to all users of the hacked account, for example, with a request to lend money, which many will trust and agree to.
Instagram Scam
Instagram is filled with a large number of ads and phishing messages with information about:
- educational courses;
- trading;
- work on the internet;
- brokerage;
- online casino games.
Every video ad on Instagram has a certain link, which is essentially a fake, where the user is offered to register for any courses they choose. Registration may require information about the card number, secret password, and this allows scammers to steal personal data of Instagram social network participants.
To recognize fraudulent messages in Instagram, certain tips need to be known:
- scammers often make spelling and grammatical errors on site texts;
- constantly offer fabulous incomes and incredible profits;
- constantly post insider and urgent information;
- require disclosure of personal data.
Social networks are a dangerous thing, where you can run into scammers, so it's worth thinking before making new acquaintances online and immediately trusting people who clearly came here for financial enrichment through deceiving users.