Social Media Scams

Social media scams can spread quickly across the mail social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Social media scams are usually designed to appear genuine, using official logos, made up terms and conditions and false weblinks. Clicking these links not only allows the scammers to harvest your personal details and steal money but it will also trigger the share feature to your connections. This means that friends and family are more likely to also fall for these scams. Here are some of the most common scams on social media platforms.

• Phishing scams: Emails or direct messages with sketchy links that download malware or capture login credentials on spoofed websites.
• Romance: Friend requests and direct messages that attempt to create a romantic interest with the goal to steal money from the victim.
• Prizes or job offers: Claims designed to obtain personal information or money from the victim, including “You’ve won!” scams.
• Quizzes and games: Designed to elicit personal information in the answers through the kind of information people may use to create passwords or answer security questions for their online accounts.
• Charity pleas: Creating fake charities to get donations during times of disaster, using sites like GoFundMe.
• Fake investment offers: Scammers promise you a great return for just a small investment.
• Bogus brand collaboration requests: Fraudsters offer to pay you for promoting their products then steal your financial data when you provide them.
• Selling followers and likes: Ask you to pay a nominal fee in exchange for like or follow packages, but your financial data gets stolen when you send financial details.
• Giveaways: Entice you to try and win a prize, but then you will be asked to provide personal information or payment to claim your winnings.
• Impostor brand accounts: Sell counterfeit goods (or never deliver the promised goods at all) under the guise of a popular brand to drain your bank account.

There are a number of things that you can do to avoid scams on social media:

• Privacy Settings: To protect your privacy, set your account to “private” so only followers you approve can see your posts, make comments, and send you direct messages.
• Use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication: One of the easiest ways to prevent unwanted logins on your accounts is to use strong passwords and enable two-factor authentication. With this in place, anytime someone tries logging in from an unrecognised location or device, they will also have to enter a one-time code in addition to your username and password sent to your phone.
• Keep track of third-party apps: Over time, you have likely connected several third-party applications to your Instagram account. You should regularly review these applications to ensure no suspicious connections have been made and delete any you do not recognise or no longer use.
• Only buy from verified profiles and brand accounts: Before you buy anything on social media, check to make sure the account you are dealing with is verified. All legitimate brands on Instagram and Facebook are verified with a blue circle check mark next to their name.
• Search regularly for accounts in your name: To avoid the damage of someone cloning your accounts and using these fake accounts maliciously, get into the habit of regularly searching for your name on the social media platform you use. This only takes a minute and is an easy way to identify and report impostor accounts.
• Decline friend requests from anyone you do not know: Get in the habit of declining friend requests from anyone you are not familiar with. The more friends you have that you do not know, the higher the risk you will be approached with a scam.
• Never click on suspicious links sent to you or respond to unsolicited messages: Whether it is a phishing email or a private message from a friend, avoid clicking on unsolicited videos or links. If you think a friend sent you something, double-check with them before clicking.

Scam Marshals

The National Trading Standards Scams Team are looking to recruit more Scam Marshals. A Scam Marshall is anyone who has been targeted by a scam and wants to fight back. Scam Marshals do this by sending any scam mail that they receive to the National Trading Standards Scams Team so that it can used as evidence in future investigative and enforcement work. The work by Scam Marshals plays a huge role in helping to stop scam mail.

You can find more information here: www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk/scammarshals