Fraud is a common thing in the offline world. However, they are mostly geographically limited. But the spatial boundary of online fraud is falling, and we as a normal user or influencer can easily fall into a network of identity theft, accounts and sensitive data or even funds. How to avoid these problems and what are the latest trends in profile theft on Instagram, we try to explain in the article.
In the past, we remember the misuse of personal or bank data through email messages. Most of these fraudulent emails were quite easily recognizable. Whether the email was written with a lot of grammatical errors, or the sender’s name was suspicious, or referred to a strange and insecure page. Recently, however, a large wave of fraudulent messages have emerged on the instagram, which are no longer so easily detectable. Here are the most common four types of instagram scams that may reach you this year.
Instagram lottery
The scam, which we may already know from spammed websites or computers infected with a virus, is still hit by a lot of people on Instagram. A fraudster often uses a fake account to tell you that you have won something. Subsequently, the fraudster will ask you for personal data or link to a link where you fill in this data. This fraud is not always easy to detect. Scammers often set up an account with a name almost the same as an existing site or influencer. who is running a contest on their instagram profiles. They inform you about winning in a real competition. But it takes place on a completely different profile.
Huge discount or free stuff
Often on Instagram or directly on some websites we may come across discounts of up to 90%, low prices on luxury brands or even free products. Sometimes it’s really a sale, but usually it’s good to check several times which page it is, their activity on the Internet, or reviews (which are often also fake). Often these fraudulent accounts urge their followers to win the product for free if they share their site. or if they are the first 20,000 fans. At best, these sites will drive followers, at worst, they will force you to pass on your personal information.
Strange activity, inappropriate content, Instagram copyright violation
This type of fraud has taken over in recent months. It is quite possible that you have already received a message that appeared to have been written by an Instagram team. Often, this team reports strange activity in your account that may not have belonged to you, inappropriate content in your posts,. Or Instagram copyright infringement. The message usually threatens that if you do not take certain steps, your Instagram. profile will be permanently deleted. If you come across this scam, click on the attached link and then fill in your personal or login details, you can say goodbye to your account.
Investing in financial programs and earning 100% and more
Apart from trading marketers, to whom you pay for a workshop where you will not learn anything new about real trading, this type of fraud does not bring anything to people at all. The fraudster will receive both money and personal information from you. This “scam”, is also based on a good design of the Instagram profile. Or an overall thoroughly elaborated website. It is not very common in the Czech Republic. But you can also meet it.
For example, more in this video:
Or in the article “The Most Common Instagram Scams And How To Avoid Them“.
We wrote about how to find out how many fake followers our selected influencer has, in the article “How find out who has fake followers? Tips and tricks“.