Deceptive Social Media Scams You Should Be Aware Of

social media can sometimes be a terrible place and not just because you have to scroll past endless pictures of people's babies and weddings you weren't invited to social media is also full of scams and shenanigans designed to steal your information as well as your money so to keep you on your dos let's take a look at some of the most deceptive social media scams you should be aware of number 10 information mining quizzes those personality quizzes you sometimes find on your Facebook wall seem like harmless fun which Harry Potter house do you belong in which brand of dish soap or garlic bread would you be but as with many things that seem like harmless fun on the internet it turns out that many of these quizzes are actually data mining operations out to steal your information and in more malicious cases access your personal accounts BuzzFeed is one of the major purveyors of these online quizzes and while they deny storing any personally identifiable information that bulk information can still be used to target ads and sell you things in a creepily specific way personal information is a hot commodity in the digital age so it's important to be careful who you give it to and what's a personality quiz except a collection of personal info better business bureau chief security officer bill Finelli said that we always knew someone was trying to trick us with social media quizzes because they are free and he's right most things on the Internet are never truly free and if they are the product is probably you number nine kedo pill scam unless you've been living under a nutritional rock you've likely heard of the keto diet which centers around putting your body into a state called ketosis by eating zero carbs so that you lose fat faster than you normally would the popularity of this fad diet has led to the creation of so called keto pills which you may have seen around social media recently supposedly they can boost your energy enhance mental clarity and curb cravings as well as help induce ketosis according to keto logics keto 30 challenge bundle key he'll companies have even created fake celebrity endorsements from people like Holly Willoughby and Adele falsely claiming that they used their products to lose alarming amounts of weight it proves you should always question what you see online in truth a pill really can't replace a whole diet change what the pills will really do is decrease your appetite by raising blood levels of ketone in the body however when you stop taking the pills you are likely to rebound and your appetite will return perhaps even stronger than before so unless you want to take these expensive pills indefinitely I would suggest avoiding them altogether number 8 Facebook government grants I'm not sure I shouldn't have to say this but your government is not handing out grants on Facebook though this may seem obvious to some a fake government grant scam has been going around on the site and it's been working in one such case a woman called Jennifer Shockley claims that she received a message from her friend Beverly saying that she'd received a $50,000 government grant and only had to pay $700 up front to get it convinced by her friend Shockley wired over the money it was only later on when she met up with her friend in person that she realized her mistake her friend's account had been hacked and the initial message was sent by someone claiming to be Beverly Shockley had been scammed these confidence tricksters will use what you believe to be a trustworthy source your friend or your government to fleece you out of your cash on the Internet this old saying still applies if it looks too good to be true it probably is number 7 influencer fraud over the last couple of decades advertising has changed dramatically turning its attention to digital media and social instead of TV and billboards one popular way of getting your product seen is by marketing it through influencers who are essentially internet personalities with large followings these followings however are not always what they seem a 2017 article by digiday broke down various bot related findings from anti-fraud company sway ops they claimed that a single day days worth of Instagram posts tagged hashtag sponsored or hashtag ad contained over 50% fake engagements and that out of 118 thousand comments less than 21,000 were not made by bot followers much of this is down to influencers purchasing fake followers to artificially increase their reach meaning that companies who advertise with them are getting way less engagement than they're paying for the sway ops research also found that more than 15% of influencers who sign on to do sponsored posts never actually create a post even though they've taken the free products given to them so just be aware if you've got a product that you're thinking about marketing through an influencer these clean-living good-looking internet celebrities may well be taking you for a ride number 6 fake fitness guru when it comes to influencers it's not always fake followers you have to worry about it can also be fake or grossly oversold products Brittney dawn fitness guru and suspiciously orange human being used to have more than half a million Instagram followers she sold personalized fitness coaching and custom-made nutrition and workout programs that cost over $500 however customers eventually realized that this was a scam since all of the programs were totally generic despite being marketed as personalized she also wasn't personally available to give customers advice which should have been obvious given the practical impossibility of that level of service Brittney kept the scam alive by deleting comments and blocking people who called her out eventually the media storm broke and Britney had to apologize and issue refunds so many of them were only partial or insufficient there are many similar Instagram X the question is Britney dawn the only bad apple or is she part of a bigger problem if you're going to give money to an Instagram fitness guru just be careful who you go with there's plenty of ways to get fit that don't carry such an outrage price tag number five travel photography scam in the scamming ecosystem it isn't always Instagram influencers themselves who are the apex predators recently influencers and travel photographers have been getting scammed through fake paid travel opportunities Carly Rudd is an accomplished travel photographer who recently fell victim to one such scam when she was contacted by someone impersonating Chinese American businesswoman Wendi Murdoch the ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch the scammer told Rudd that she was putting on an Olympics related exhibition in Indonesia and asked her if she'd like to come out and take some photos the scammer convinced Rudd to send the fake Murdoch $15,000 for first class plane tickets promising her she'd be reimbursed as well as another $1,400 for a fake Indonesian photography permit Rudd then travelled to Jakarta but knew something was wrong when the fake Wendi Murdoch asked her to split up with her husband immediately the photographer was then left stranded in Indonesia $17,000 short the master manipulator has targeted Hollywood celebrities before but has recently moved on to influencers because they're less well-protected as targets so let this be a warning to influencers big and small if Wendy Murdock calls don't pick up the phone number for fake corporate accounts corporate social media accounts can be a good way to get in contact with a company if you have an issue with a product or service but if they're getting in unsolicited contact with you personally then you should definitely be suspicious a study analyzing 10 top brands from different industries across Facebook Twitter YouTube and Instagram revealed that 19 percent of social media accounts associated with these big companies were fake scammers used the recognizability of companies like BMW Amazon Nike Samsung Sony and Starbucks to offer fake coupons giveaways and software updates while the majority of these accounts are used to generate fraudulent ad revenue by directing followers to fake websites almost 30 percent are either attempts to sell counterfeit fraud or plain old phishing scams here are a couple of examples of fraudulent accounts dressed up to look like Samsung and Capital One pages just keep an eye out for a low follower accounts and never give your personal information away to anyone online you never know what someone can do with it number three detox tea doesn't work fitness Instagram is back at it again with another oversold product that simply doesn't do what it claims detox teas are everywhere on the image focused social platform with big hitting influencers like Kylie Jenner and cardi B firmly on board the train you'd think being in that position of power might enable you to market products that actually work right think again these over-invested tea companies may have enough cash to secure series celeb endorsements but the consumer pays the real price here detox or weight loss tea doesn't work simply because detoxing is a myth your liver and kidneys are already doing it for you products like life tea which contains the stomach cramping laxative senna leaves the unproven weight-loss herb Moringa and the blood pressure raising coup Arana are not going to make your organs do this better the only thing that will help you to get healthy or lose weight is diet and exercise so focus on that first before you buy any pointless overpriced products number two Instagram isn't deleting your account if your Instagram account is starting to get popular chances are that phishing scammers are going to come knocking valuable accounts across the platform have been receiving fake messages and emails from accounts posing as Instagram stating that their account will be deleted if they don't follow a link or share a particular picture the messages look like this on the app itself though they may also send emails that look like this you can tell it's fake because the email isn't legitimate scammers buy domains like the Instagram dot teams and make emails that look official but actually aren't Instagram never does this and if they were having technical difficulties everyone else would know about it too the scammers are using the fear of account loss - it exploit people who are working hard to build something which just demonstrates how low these guys are willing to sink there's another popular scam that plays on people's vanity and that's the see who's been viewing your profile scam these fake programs which are really just phishing sites claim to be able to show you who's been checking out your page and some of the sites look quite a lot like the actual Facebook login page the truth is Facebook never have and probably never will allow you to access this information particularly since they've become so concerned about privacy platforms like LinkedIn do actually allow this but you can only see the whole list to be by Premium Membership as tempting as this information seems you're just not going to get it so don't risk the safety of your account by trying number one trading scams not long ago the most likely age group to fall victim to scams were over fifty fives but recently there's been an extreme spike in under 25s who are being defrauded by fraudulent Forex crypto and binary options trading scams the fake traders do this by flexing their wealth on Instagram or Twitter telling their followers that they can be rich too but only if they sign up to the newest piece of trading software and put down a minimum deposit of a few hundred dollars or they'll claim to know the scoop on which financial products to invest in like foreign exchange rates to access these exclusive services you'll have to join their membership subscription which isn't a sure way to get rich it's much more difficult to trade successfully than they make it seem the truth about these traders like london-based insta trader Elijah ofE so is that normally they're not even traders at all but promoters who get paid a percentage of the minimum deposit sign-up fee for every person they convince around seventy five percent of people who put their money down end up losing all of it so your profit odds would be 25% higher if you just went to a roulette table and put it all on black there are of course legitimate financial advisors and traders out there who aren't scamming people but those guys probably aren't posing with gold Lamborghinis on Instagram because they just don't need - just think about it if someone knew all the secret investments that we'll do well then why would they tell you they'd make more money just keeping quiet and trading themselves the problem has gotten so bad that regulators have recently had to raise awareness over the issue a recent ad campaign by the FCA hit the bull's eye in its attempts to protect younger more financially vulnerable social media users from the dangers of scam traders with fake lifestyles the photos they advertised show just how easy it is to fake a lavish lifestyle with a few green screens and basic editing know-how between 2018 and 2019 over 34 million dollars were lost to scams involving crypto and Forex investment so if you're thinking about taking the leap make sure you do your research or you could end up with nothing have you ever been the victim of an online scam are there any deceptive scams that I missed in this video let me know in the comments down below be careful out there folks and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: BE AMAZED

Views: 146,572

Rating: 4.8487859 out of 5

Keywords: beamazed, be amazed, top 10, save money, scammer caught, scam fail, safety online, online scams, phone scammer, internet scams, social media, phone scams, phone scammer prank, scammer prank call, phone frauds, whatsapp scams, phone safety, protect your phone, phone safety tips, phone safety hacks, phone safety lock, online scams documentary, online scams you might get fooled by, online scams to watch out for, internet scams 2019, online scams 2019

Id: 84_POnq0kx0

Length: 14min 30sec (870 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 24 2019