Instagram cryptocurrency fraud horribly became a rather prominent trend, with hundreds and thousands of people falling into the shady hands of scammers. Being a cryptocurrency investor, or simply someone who just starts his/her journey in this crypto world, it should be your top priority to make sure that you invest in the right and most importantly safe projects if you looking on making, not losing money.
One of the latest, cryptocurrency related scams was centered around Instagram users being manipulated by “high-end” brands into parting with their Bitcoin. The reports came mostly from Sweden, were recently issuing warnings to stop any future possible scams from happening. Forbes reported that:
“Products from high-end brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, as well as consumer electronics like Apple, have recently been advertised for spot prices between 50 and 300 Euros primarily to the general public in Sweden. In order to finalize the purchase, individuals are being tricked into exchanging fiat currency to cryptocurrency. Once such currency a transfer has been completed, the Instagram seller vanishes with the money, and the luxury products are never delivered to the buyer. This has persisted, even though cases are being reported to the law enforcement authorities.”
The main idea of the scam was the following: primarily young people were approached on their social media pages with a sweet offer of buying clothes and accessories from major retail companies for a very low price. You can imagine that in reality, these products have never existed. People were told that in order to make a transaction happen, they need to swap their FIAT currency for a cryptocurrency. And when the scammer was receiving his crypto payment, he was simply disappearing, leaving all of the cheated customers behind. The majority of those who got scammed were relatively young, under the age of 25, which only proves that the whole act was planned really well.
Nowadays if we discover any new Bitcoin-related scams, it usually happens on social media and especially Twitter, which sadly became sort of a nest for Ethereum based frauds and giveaways. And it is not a big surprise since social media has all of the perfect conditions for those illegal actions. Scammers can operate online, concealing themselves, remaining autonomous, picking up the most vulnerable victims as the targets, by studying their accounts. They work directly and can send thousands of convincing messages, hoping that at least a couple of potential victims will take the bait. And this is usually what happens. It only works because, despite us living in the era of information, where every user should be aware of what his actions may lead to online, some people still do not have any clue about the safety.
Magnus Karlsson, who is a Strategic Analyst at the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Swedish Police publicly warned anyone who looks on making purchases using the Instagram account. He urged everyone to be more responsible with their finances, doing at least some research on the product before buying it. Even simply looking up an average price of the product you looking on getting, can greatly reduce the damage that scammers were able to achieve recently. The idea is simple – if the price range of the product differs drastically, big chances are, you are being scammed.
Here is a comment that has been made by one local cryptocurrency brokers in regards to these recent reports:
“As our customer service engages way quicker with the users than the Police – our employees flag suspicious accounts or wanted to engage with Instagram customer service via their support email. Unfortunate as the customer service of Instagram is literally non-existent, it increases the delays to take countermeasure. Furthermore, as the law enforcement agencies have to process thousands of cases, there is a significant delay between the day when the fraudulent case is reported and when the police will spot the suspicious pattern in the fraudulent transactions. We would like to do more but that’s not possible because Instagram is just not very responsive as they don’t have a dedicated email address for their fraud department and claim that they have done enough for users to flag the fraudulent advertisements in their app as spam; what unaware users only rarely do otherwise they might not be scammed in the first place.”
As for right now, Instagram deleted all of the accounts that were suspected in any illegal activity involvement, but this, of course, will not eliminate the problem as a whole. Furthermore, there are certain actions that you can perform yourself, to decrease the threat of these scammers ever getting to your banking account:
Ask the seller to send you more pictures of the product you are interested in
Scammers will rarely have an item they pretend to be selling. So, if you feel like the person who is trying to sell you something might be a scammer himself, ask him to send you more pictures of the product at the same location as the initial photo, but from additional angles. Chances are, your trustworthy seller will disappear after a request like that.
Check the received product pictures with a reverse image search
Scammers will usually use pictures that are available to the public. By using a reverse image search, you can check if the photo that was sent to you is actually a unique one, and has been made by your seller, or it is just a random picture that was picked up online.
Usually, you will be able to find such a picture on multiple accounts or websites.
Check if the broker that is writing to you is actually involved with e-commerce
In order to convince you, scammers will usually use logos or info of the legitimate cryptocurrency companies out there. This way, their offering will seem legit as well. And while Social networks are relying more and more on automated and AI-based approaches fighting scams, it is never a bad idea – in case you have your doubts – simply to contact the listed company by phone, or simply message them and big chances are, that the name you will be checking, will not be in their books.
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