Saturday 22 December 2018
Whilst I have been active here unmasking fake accounts on Instagram I have noticed one particular scam with many different guises. Remember when we all first got email accounts and we were bombarded with spam emails from Nigerians telling us we were beneficiaries in wills of dead relatives we never knew we had but all happened to come from Nigeria? Some people responded to these and lost a lot of money because they gave their bank details to the person emailing them. There are accounts on Instagram and Facebook which are the modern equivalent to those old email scams.
You will see there are a lot of people who befriend you and tell you that for an investment of cash from you, they can invest it for you in bitcoin mining, crypto currency speculation, forex trading. They may even tell you that you are eligible to receive a Federal Government Grant from America and you can apply for it even though you may well not be American!! You may be a winner in a Facebook lottery but they tell you this on Instagram. You may be a winner of a grant or lottery run by Instagram. They may tell you that you have won on the lottery in another country - eg you live in America but you have won on the British National Lottery.
Hold on just a minute. There is no Facebook lottery - never mind what they tell you, never mind that they are photoshopping stolen photos with fake cheques, banners etc. The same goes for Instagram. There is not a lottery or grant given out by this company ever.
The British National Lottery can only be won by genuine British people. It is not given to people who are nationals of another country living abroad. You get a message saying you have won a lottery in another country - remember no lottery win is given out directly from the lottery - you have to claim with your ticket to the information given on the back of your ticket. They do not find winners, the winner claims the prize.
How about a Federal Government Grant - no such thing. You pay shipping fees to receive your cheque or money and guess what? No cheque or money is received by you - only the scammers get richer with your payments.
So surely bitcoin mining, crypto currency trading and forex trading are legitimate? They can be in the right places and with the right people. Not with fake accounts on Instagram set up to 'invest' your money for you. Guess what happens here? Yeah you invest your amount (probably an amount suggested by the trader) and, goodness me what a surprise, you don't see a return on your investment. Then they say oh well you need to invest a little more with us and you will see a huge return this time and, yep, you guessed it, you never see a return.
These scams are a way to relieve you of your cash or to get your bank details and other personal information which they can use to steal your money and have access to your bank account.
Oh and one other thing about these accounts. The profile picture of the account owner is often a famous person, a familiar face used in other scams online, or it could even be you. Scammers use photographs sent by the women they chat to to set up fake accounts online that they use as car park accounts - accounts that generally just have fake scamming accounts following them o r just follow lots of fake accounts. They also use them to set up these fake accounts promoting get rich quick schemes and investment/lottery/grant/bitcoin accounts.
ANYONE OR ANY ACCOUNT ON INSTAGRAM THAT ASKS YOU TO INVEST YOUR MONEY IS A SCAM AND COMING FROM A FAKE ACCOUNT MANNED BY SCAMMERS.
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