Social networks are one of the favourite places of scammers for generating their profits. There are so many people who are not careful enough about the information shared with them that it can be really easy for scammers to benefit from them financially.
If you do not want to become one of the victims of such scammers, you should be aware of some of the techniques used by them. This article will help you to understand the favourite tools of criminals working through social networks.
Receiving free items
Undeniably, one of the best ways to make people pay you is by promising them to give something which is supposed to be for free. Some of the most widespread techniques used by scammers are informing Internet users about winning some valuable prizes or inheriting money from a deceived relative. In the first place a person will have to pay for the delivery of the prize whereas in the second option money is paid for the services of a lawyer.
Yet, this is not the end of the schemes of such a type. There is also another rather popular way of making other people pay for the delivery of goods which are supposedly available for free.
Groups for exchanging goods
Social networks are filled with groups in communities where people are ready to exchange their things for other stuff from people who are interested without paying any extra money. Some people are even ready to give their possessions for free. Usually, the person who is ready to share their items with others ask the members of a group to repost something.
Some goods do not cause any second thoughts. For instance, small furniture or toys do not raise any suspicion. Still, you might come across the posts about sharing rather expensive electronic devices. Certainly, such posts look alluring, however, this itself should make you think twice about taking the offer.
If you still want to check whether it is possible to receive something really valuable, you should pay your attention to several signals which will tell you that the offer is, in all likelihood, a fraud.
First of all, scammers tend to turn the possibility of commenting such posts off. This is itself strange since the participants should have a possibility of exchanging information about the goods they are interested in.
Another feature of a fraud is the fact that people who are offering you something for free ask you to pay only for the delivery. Ad you can imagine, people who want to get rid of something they do not need will hardly spend their time on organising the delivery of this object to anyone.
You should also pay your attention to the photo used in the post. Many scammers even do not have the objects they are offering to others, so they need to use photos which have been made by others. Thus, you might find these photos somewhere else on the net as well. In order to check whether the photos used in the post are unique, you can use various picture tracking tool such as, for example, PhotoTracker Lite which will check TinEye, Bing, Google and Yandex searching systems for the presence of your image.
Finally, you should understand the way scammers are earning money in such a case. Usually, to receive a free good you will have to use the services of the third party who is guaranteeing you the safety of this appointment. The money for the delivery is paid to this person rather than to the one offering the object of your interest. Yet, the services of this person are not free and you will have to pay for them.
As a result, the person will tell you the post was a fraud and you will get your money for the delivery back, however, you will not be able to get the money for the services of that person back.
Free brand clothes and discounts on Instagram
There is an alternative to such a fraudulent activity on Instagram as well. Here, you can come across fake accounts which are offering free clothes and discounts to people who will make a repost. In order to get your free goods, you will need to answer a couple of questions and pay money for the delivery. The number of an electronic wallet will be sent to your email address. Once a sufficient number of people pay for the delivery, the account is deleted.
If you are willing to participate in such events but are not sure about security, you should contact the official representatives of the shops which are presumably handing out their goods. The representatives will tell you whether there is really such a promotion organised by a shop or not.
Promotion of your account
There are accounts, especially on Instagram which are created with a view to promoting other accounts. Some of them will actually help you to do that, however, there are many accounts which will just collect money from other users for promotion. Afterwards, the scammers will simply delete their accounts.