Instagram Love Scams: Awareness and security needed
Have you met someone through Instagram or Facebook? Then be careful as long as you do not know for sure that the person is real. Not every Instagram or Facebook account is genuine.
A modern method to get into contact with a potential victim is the use of social media accounts.
Instagram accounts are frequently used to start all kinds of scams. Romance Scammers mainly from African countries create fake profiles on dating sites or apps for fraudulent purposes. They pretend to be people with interesting professions. These are, for example:
- Soldiers
- Engineers on oil platforms
- International car dealers
- Architects
- Seamen
and many other professions where you can claim you are just in a far away country.
Instagram scammers use deceptive authentic looking accounts to make people send money for invented purposes, such as
- sick relatives,
- animals in need,
- sudden emergencies
often pretending to be divorced, widowed or in distress. However, romance scams are the biggest scams on Instagram.
What are Instagram Romance Scams?
Instagram romance scams are a popular method of deceiving victims to send their hard earned money to these thieves. It is easy to create false accounts, and access to other users is exceptionally easy to establish.
To prevent this, you need to inform yourself and prevent this kind of scam altogether. Then Instagram Romance Scammers won’t have any chance.
Although the nature of the tales that the scammer spins differs, the basic theme is nearly the same: there is a problem and your online acquaintance needs your help = money desperately.
The romance scammer would ask for assistance after spending some time talking and forming a relationship with the victim. From one time to another, the amount of money demanded becomes higher.
Scammers use social media accounts to get in contact with their potential victims.
How do Instagram Love Scams operate?
1. Loaded texts and tricks
With a platform like Instagram, it is nice to develop a chat with someone by initially following their posts and then contact them by personal messages, to take a private discussion.
Scammers appear to be a person who holds the possible victims’ interests. One example: For the scam he would presumably have a report representing the popular interests. For starters, he may be an enthusiast for a puppy, if a person has several images of a pet.
2. Involvement of money
Like all other scams, Instagram scams are used to get money or information – which could later be used to get money.
Instagram officials have issued a lot of warnings that everyone should be aware of those thieves. However these thugs take a long time to develop a relation, in which the victim would eventually submit cash anyway. These romantic scams are a not always easy to detect.
3. Target multiple audiences at a time
Instagram scammers will use a large net with contacts to thousands of people. It is not rare for them to run multiple scams with a lot of different people.
4. Deception
Just after the victim answers a direct message, the scam continues. It begins inadvertently, with the scammer reaching the victim with a contact request. The scammer pretends to be the ideal girlfriend or boyfriend whenever the victim is open to his romantic advancement.
Though Instagram is not a typical online dating site, the large number of people using this network makes it easy to contact many potential victims and pretend to have a common interest.
5. They always keep on sharing troubles
The scammer starts to build a trustworthy partnership with the victim. The scammer sooner or later asks for money.
Often used is the story of the beloved family dog getting very sick. The dog is in dire need of an expensive medical treatment and the scammer can’t access his or her money because he or she is currently in a foreign country.
Guess who will be asked to help in this situation?
Who is not willing to help a sick dog? Unfortunately scammers invent stories like that to get your money.
Instagram Love Scams: Tips to avoid them
You can never know whom you are going to meet on Instagram, of course not everyone is a scammer. But social media is supposed to bring people together and unfortunate side effect is that ruthless criminals are also able to get in contact with a lot of potential victims.
The first rule is not to provide outsiders with private details. You would not share intimate details with a stranger on the street, so why would you do that with someone you have met online?
2. Sign of financial help
If someone starts asking for money and you know that person only from messages via Instagram or Facebook or other social media sites, you should be warned.
Should someone ask for money, vouchers, gift cards, iTunes cards, bitcoins, cash or something similar it should be a red flag no matter how good the reason might seem. Romantic scams are responsible for the highest losses, if you compare them to the other methods.
3. Verify their identity
Instagram and online romances in general are troublesome because, unless your correspondence is working for and representing an official well known company or is a celebrity (be careful: there are also fake accounts of celebrities), you don’t know who you are talking to.
There are so many (well made) fake accounts that it is impossible to spot a scammer without a deeper investigation and experience. The fraud pays off for the criminals.
4. Beware if they are extra friendly
Be much more cautious if the discussion tends to become personal. It could be genuine and you could talk to a nice person. However, the chances to meet a scammer are high and no matter how good it feels to hear how amazing you are, you should be alert at all times.
Most interactions include a time-consuming “get to know us.” Although a profile image can be appealing, it is almost certainly a bad idea to dive deep into an online relationship. Scammers will use your feelings to their advantage and exploit them as they see fit.
Be aware a scammer can share his “personal secrets” without any thoughts, since they are invented. So take things slow and do not pay any money.
Connecting to a person who tells you how amazing you are is easy. Have you met your perfect match or just someone who tells you what you want to hear?
Scammers will text you all day and night how marvellous you are that you are loved and all that in a reassuring manner with a lot of big words. You need to be alert if you get that kind of messages.
6. Instagram protection
If you wish to move your online relationship to the next level, insist on a telephone call or even better a video call, since a phone call does not give any proof of whether the person behind the account is authentic or a fake. But be careful: even a video call is no guarantee that the person is genuine.
Make sure that you report bogus an Instagram account when you see one and blacklist those you suspect.
Scammers get into bad situations and only you can help. However the only outcome in this scenario is that you loose a lot of money.
Love scammer Instagram? We find out the truth
Instagram is a perfect place for posting images and connecting to people who share similar interests. Unfortunately, criminals use platforms like this to prey on unsuspecting victims too. That is just the way of the internet.
So if people you don’t know to approach you, it is necessary to be smart. If you are in contact with someone on the internet and want to be sure if this person is real: contact us, we check people and investigate if they are real or fraudsters.
We check people every day to see if they are real or if they are romance scammers. It’s our job to find out the truth about romance scams on social media. We have extensive experience in this field and we are able to determine exactly in almost every country in the world whether you are dealing with a person you can trust or a con-artist.
Don’t be frightened to approach us and get our advice if you believe your online relationship’s might be a fake, because you protect yourself this way.
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