Social media scams are a vile epidemic across the internet like classy older woman quotes. With all of the social networking platforms available, people like to prey on others by stealing their personal information and impersonating them online. They then go on to defraud their victims. This blog post is going to provide some major-league advice for how you can stay safe when using these sites.
Whether it’s a scammer pretending to be your best friend while they want your banking information or someone asking you to “join my paid survey,” there are plenty of ways scammers attempt to steal from unsuspecting users.
1. They Keep Asking You to Add Them as a Friend
We get it. Everyone wants more friends or followers. However, if you aren’t familiar with a user, why would you want to add them? It’s very likely that they are trying to add you so they can steal your identity and defraud you or they are just scammers trying to get your money. Don’t ever add someone unless you are familiar with who they are and trust them. You should visit their profile often as well just in case something changes and it appears that something is off about them.
2. They Start Asking You to Recommend Them
It’s common for scammers to ask you to recommend them to others on your social media sites. They will often use fake names or pretend they have an account on the site and claim that they have lots of followers. Be sure that they are not asking you to recommend them because they want your money so don’t ever do it. It’s just a website scam, nothing more. If you want others to find their profile because you believe in the person, then go ahead and send it out to others but don’t get yourself scammed into sending them money either way. They are trying to collect your personal information so that they can steal from you after that fact is discovered later on down the road.
3. They Are Sending You a Lot of Private Messages
When you start to see a lot of people in your inbox on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other home page social media site using a lot of private messages to contact you, there is usually a reason why. These are scammers trying to steal from you. Be wary as these messages will be more than likely totally fake and they will want something from you and contrary to popular belief, they will not ask for money. Some scams ask for your personal information while others just ask that you follow them on their social media account.
4. They Ask You to Send Money or Personal Information
If someone starts asking you for money on a social media site, then you know that it’s a scam. They will often create a fake page and claim to need your financial help but the real story is that they are trying to get you to send them your money. Many people have fallen victim to this kind of scam and lost thousands of dollars. The best thing you can do is not send any money at all. If someone wants $10 from you because they say their dog was in an accident, then just do not respond because it’s only going to get worse. If they want your bank account number, then don’t just give it out because it’s not safe.
5. They Ask You to Share Their Profile or to Like Their Post
This is also a scam but these scammers like to ask you to share their profile or do some other type of action because they want you to click on the link that has been provided and it will take you to a fake Facebook website. There are so many of these scams out there now, it’s hard to avoid them. You need to look into each of the profiles that are interested in you and make sure there is nothing suspect about their story or who they really are.
6. They Send You Messages from a Different Social Media Site
If you see a message popping up from a popular social media site in your inbox, then you need to be careful. There are plenty of scammers out there and many of them have multiple accounts so that they can divide their time between different targets. By sending messages to separate sites, they believe that it will help them to avoid detection and make their scams much harder to track down. This makes it easier for them to steal from you too because you won’t ever realize that the same person has stolen your money from several accounts across several social media sites.
7. They Keep Asking You to Add a Link to Your Profile
If you happen to be using social media sites, then you are sure to have seen this scam at least once. These people will ask you if you can add a link to your profile and when you look at it, it will take you away from the website that you are on and direct your computer to some type of spam site. This scam is vicious because these scammers make thousands upon thousands of dollars from their efforts. By getting people involved in their fake schemes, they get more people interested in what they are offering and more people start sharing the link with others who think that it’s a good thing too.
Summary:
When you aren’t looking, scammers can get a hold of your personal information and take advantage of you. This is why it’s so important to be careful about who you decide to be friends with on social media, who you decide to send money to (if anyone), what links you click on, and who you choose to add as a follower or friend. The worst thing that you can do is just put your guard down and not pay attention because it will only lead to trouble for the future.
