Whether they steal people's money through cryptocurrencies and NFTs or the old-fashioned way, scammers' methods of unknowingly taking others' money always start with gaining their trust, whether they are romance scammers, job scammers, lottery scammers, or a paid subscription fraud scammer.
Once you give them your trust, it's game over.
Social media is no exception either. In fact, more than 95,000 people reported about $770 million in losses to fraud on social media platforms in 2021, per the Federal Trade Commission. Additionally, Facebook and Instagram are at the top of the list of apps that have the most scam victims, per Investopedia and Social Catfish's reports.
Social Catfish is an online dating investigation service based in California.
So, how do you avoid being a part of that statistic when you're about to visit Instagram?
Learn the Signs and How to Spot Them
Thankfully, Instagram has posted a list of things to look out for to prevent being scammed. According to the app's post on the topic, scams happen when people create fake accounts or hack into existing Instagram accounts you followed. These people would then use these accounts to try and trick you into giving them money or personal information.
As such, a sign that the person you're talking to on Instagram is a scammer would be when they ask you for money when you don't know them in person, or when they're asking you to send them money or gift cards to receive a loan, prize or other winnings.
Additionally, job seekers should be on the lookout for people who ask them a fee to apply for a job, as this is a sign that the person they're talking to is a scammer.
People who claim to be from Instagram while asking you to provide them with account information or offering you account verification services are also scammers.
Also, a telltale sign of a person being a scammer is when they ask you to move your conversation to a less secure or public setting or that they claim to have a friend or relative in an emergency. Another way scammers use to trick people is to misrepresent where they are located.
Scammers would also try to make you click on a suspicious link while making it appear as if the message the link was sent came from a friend or a company you know.
Finally, another sign that a person is most likely a scammer is that they have a brief history on Instagram, have poor spelling, commit grammatical mistakes, and ask you to claim a prize or sell you an item at an extreme cost.
Preventing the Scam
Aside from not trusting scammers, Kaspersky has some tips to avoid being scammed on Instagram's platform.
As a rule of thumb, if something sounds too good to be true, like winning the lottery or a giveaway item, or the sudden promise of a happily ever after, then it probably is.
The first and foremost is to ignore or be cautious with people who ask you to "give" them something, such as your personal details, bank account, or money, in the case of job scammers. If you've received any direct messages or emails you find suspicious and that they ask you something, proceed with caution or outright ignore them.
Another way to prevent being scammed on Instagram is never to use a login link through a message. As previously discussed, scammers could have sent a link with a message to look like it came from someone you're familiar with. Kaspersky advises people to take a breath and seek out the real URL or link.
Kaspersky said in their post on the topic that if there is a real problem, an authentic login will make it clear. Additionally, you should also follow up with an official support email, chat, or customer phone number to confirm the issue rather than the one who sent you the link.
Another way to prevent yourself from becoming a scam victim is using an anti-virus program on all your devices to protect yourself from any malware that might have entered your device in some way, such as a suspicious link.
In addition to that, always be wary of strangers following you out of the blue. As previously mentioned, scammers start their modus by gaining your trust. Blocking these suspicious individuals can prevent you from being a scam victim.
Enabling two-factor authentication on all online accounts gives scammers a secondary checkpoint to get through while giving you an early warning system if someone other than you is trying to get into your account.
Last but not least, if someone you know sends a strange message, contacting them directly through a phone call or talking to them in person would validate their identity. A scammer may be impersonating them and has targeted other people your friend may know if that friend doesn't remember sending that strange message.
