How to spot a social media scam
Social media is popular tool for scammers. According to the regulator Ofcom, around nine in 10 people have experienced an online scam, with nearly a quarter having first encountered the scam on social media.
These scams are usually cunningly crafted to appear genuine, they may come in the form of a phoney friend or new romance, a fake business flogging exclusive offers and investments, or impersonate a trusted brand using official logos.
Unbeknown to the victim, they're lured into handing over personal information either through private messaging or by linking off to a dodgy website.
- From fake Facebook offers to WhatsApp job scams, stay up-to-date on the latest scams in circulation.
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6 tips to spot a social media scam
Stay one step ahead of the scammers by following our six top tips to spotting a social media scam.
1. Is too good to be true?
Scammers will often pretend to be from legitimate and trustworthy sources, offering an enticing incentive to click through to a ‘too good to be true’ deal.
The first thing you should do is try doing a quick search for the promotion. If the company, organisation or brand is promoting a deal on social media, they are likely to also be promoting it on their official website.
2. Check their identity
Confirm the identity of the person or organisation, especially if they’ve contacted you out of the blue and are asking for money.
Can you confirm who they really are? Look them up, check a few sources to confirm their identity. Use a tool like TinEye to trace the source of a profile picture.
If it's a tempting investment offer, you can search the Financial Services Register.
3. Inspect all URLs
Closely inspect any URLs you aren’t sure about. Does the URL look suspicious? Does it match the URL of the company website?
Sometimes enticing posts on social media link to a fake login page, and when you enter your email and password, you’re actually giving those details to a scammer.
Always check that the URL matches the social media website you’re using if you’re redirected to a login page after clicking a link in a post. Use a tool like who.is to look up domain name registrations, a recent registration is a good indication that it's a scam website.
4. Check your social media timeline
Are you seeing an unusually high volume of the same status being shared? This should ring alarm bells that it may be a scam, especially if the message is the same for more than a few people.
5. Don't give out personal or financial information
Online fraudsters often don’t want you to hand over money straight away. Instead, they want you to provide your personal or financial information.
If they have access to these details, they’ll be able to use your identity fraudulently or can use your financial information to get access to your money via your bank or building society account.
Remember that if you pay for anything via bank transfer, you have limited protections to be able to get your money back from a bank transfer scam.
6. Contact the company
You could reach out to the organisation, company or brand to find out if the deal is genuine.
Don’t do this by clicking on any links in the possible scam. Instead, search for the company’s real homepage and contact them via a social media account, email address or telephone number you find on there.
Fake social media adverts
Scammers often pretend to be advertisers on social media. They create social media accounts and pay to have their scam message advertised to you.
They are trying to exploit the credibility of social media advertising, understanding that you’ve grown used to seeing and trusting offers from genuine advertisers on social media.
Stay vigilant when you see new companies, organisations or brands pop up on your feed. You should also be suspicious if you see a new social media account advertising for a company you know well. It may be a scammer pretending to be a new branch or new account for that brand.
Social media ad scams can be hard to spot - test your scam spotting skills out by taking our quiz.
Whatsapp social media scams
We’ve seen an increasing number of scams using the messaging app, Whatsapp.
They may impersonate a loved one, like the popular 'Help a friend' scam', share fake job offers, or promotional deals and competitions that are too good to be true.
The promotional message scam, for example, is sent straight to the phone of a victim, calling on the recipient to click the link in order to claim their prize. Clicking on the link will often lead you to a website survey that will require you to fill in your personal information before the ‘prize’ is sent to you.
When the survey is completed, sometimes you may be asked to select Whatsapp friends to share the deal with. The promotional message and link will then be sent to all of those contacts selected in a group chat message, continuing the spread of the scam.
Whatsapp scams can be reported by opening the chat, click the contact details and scroll down to 'report'. You can also choose to 'block' the contact.
Romance scams
Romance scammers start the grooming process by befriending you on social media, before trying to establish a romantic connection. They may reach out to you on community groups, conning you into thinking you have a common connection. Our investigation revealed how scammers target vulnerable people on charity Facebook pages.
Common tactics involve contacting you constantly, flattering you and making you feel special.
The end game is that romance scammers will eventually ask you to send them money for what sounds like a legitimate cause, such as to pay for hospital treatment or to cover debts because they have lost their job.
To protect yourself from romance scammers, you should avoid befriending strangers online or via social media. If you’re suspicious about an online profile, you can use TinEye to try to trace the source of its profile picture. It's also worth searching the name used on the profile, as it may have previously been used by a scammer.
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