What is a Facebook messenger scam
There is the latest type of scam in the market that is called the Facebook messenger scam.
In this scam, a person who claims to be a trading company will contact you and ask you to invest in the company. The scammer will tell you that you can easily earn eight hundred Percent profit weekly. They will ask you to invest the money and get profit every week. They are expert in finding people to scam.
This scam can be found on many Facebook groups.
How the scammer finds you
These scammers are experts in finding people to push their message. When you see any Facebook group that is less regulated by the admins, these scammers will post there all day. If you are part of the group and you are commenting that there, they will try to contact you by obtaining your personal information. Anyone is their target. Most of the times, they will not contact you by phone number or WhatsApp because these are traceable. They will try to contact you by Facebook messaging app and this is also called Facebook messenger scam because of that. Their first step is to send the friend request or an invitation to join their network. If you ignore this request, they will try to message you directly. These scammers know that most of the social media platforms will filter their messages as spam if they are not in your network.
How the scam works
Now, the scammer is successful in sending out a message to your inbox and you have seen the message. If you will reply to the message, they will become confident that you can be a target. They will ask you to invest $1000 in their company.
They will tell you that after investing $1000, they will invest your money in Forex and you can get eight hundred per cent profit within a week without any risk. They want to receive the money in the most untraceable way. They will accept Bitcoins or Western Union payments for this purpose.
If you will ask for their bank account to send the money, they will refuse and they will also not accept the check payments.
If you ask about the company address, they will give you a fake address that is not traceable. There is no way you are going to receive your money with eight hundred per cent profit in this way because it is not a legit way of earning money online but only a scam. Sometimes they will ask you for your bank details so they can directly take the money from the bank to invest in the trading platform. By this way, they will take all of the money available in your bank. Some of them will claim that they will give you a secret to making money by using online jobs. This is their claim on one hand but on the other hand, they will say that you will get money while sitting at home doing nothing. These contradictory statements should raise a Red flag on the person.
20% bonus scam
You might be thinking that it is OK to try and lose $1000 because you might be a millionaire and this will not affect you at all. This next trick of the scammers will make you even more frustrated about the Facebook messenger scam. If you have invested 1000 dollars, they will show that 1000 dollars are invested on their platform by showing 1000 digit on their website. The websites will look legitimate and they are expert in making people fool. After one week, you will see that this 1000 digit has increased to 8000. Now, they will go to the second step and ask for 20% of the earning as commission so they can send you your profit. You have already invested $1000 and now they want you to send $1600 more so you can get the $8000. We all know where this is going. Once you send this 1600 dollars, there is no coming back because the person will block you on social media and sometimes they will delete the website also. As you have sent the money through the untraceable channel, there is no way of getting your hard-earned money back.
Experience with a scammer
In the reference video, we have seen that the host has started the chat with the scammer. This is only to show the audience how to know that you are going into the scam and how to avoid this situation. In that video, he asked scammer about their address and he told that they have two branches: one in the USA and other in the UK. The scammer sent the address of both of these branches. When host searched these addresses, he found there was no such address available. When he asked if other people are getting the profit by this program, the scammer sent profile link of multiple people. Upon investigation, he found that all of these people were fake. Some of the profiles were even taken down by Facebook due to Facebook policy violations. This was amazing how the host was easily successful in exposing bi scammer. He was expert and he knew that the person he is contacting is a scammer. This problem can get tricky when you do not know if a person is scamming you. You should keep your eyes open for the close just like given in this video.
Tools and tricks scammers use to trap people
You may have heard about the tools and tricks used by the marketing professionals to promote the businesses. Certain tools are used by the scammers also. Scamming is not an easy thing because it requires a lot of planning. The scammers are usually part of a big group. They will try to check the things that will work and the things that are not beneficial for them. Scammers may train each other to scam the people. They have developed some tricks that can be used to scam people easily. They will use these tools to look like a real company to rob your hard-earned money. You must know that the tools used by these scammers. Some of the common tools used by them in the Facebook messenger scam are given below.
Right target selection
As mentioned earlier, they are very specific about the target selection. The scammer will always look for simple people. They are sure that they can lure these people into the fake offer. Making the right target selection is important for them and so they make rules to select the right target. They will roam in the groups that specialise in helping people make money online. They will know that the people here are ready to invest online. Comment showing little experience in online business and desire to join the online trading can make the scammers mark your Facebook profile. Once your profile is marked, they will try to enter your network by sending you the friend request or asking you to join their Facebook group. In the next step, they will send you a message and try to convince you to invest the money in the scam.
Legitimate looking website
You should be aware of this tool because it has convinced a lot of people to invest in the scam. The scammers will make an amazingly looking website with all the details that are required on the professional investment websites. This is a top tool of the scammers. When they will contact you, they will give you detail about the profit. At this stage, most of us will ask them about their website. They have no problem in showing you their website because it is their tool to convince you to give them the money. There are a lot of ways you can avoid getting scammed even when you feel the website is legitimate. You should check the address on the website and the WHOIS information of the domain. This will give you an idea about the company.
Accurate looking address
There is another tool used by these scammers that is the accurate looking postal address. They will give you a genuine-looking postal address when you ask them about their address. They are expert in creating fake profiles and fake addresses. There is a way you can confirm if the address is genuine or not. Because these scammers have gained experience in scamming people, they know how to use the fake address generator as a told to attract people in their fake company. You must follow the rules of checking the accuracy of the address. You can find the rules of checking the accuracy of the address in the section of avoiding the scam.
Pushing people
These scammers are very cunning. They will understand if you are a simple person who does not want to disrespect others. If they will sense your respecting behaviour, they will try to push you harder and try to be rude with you so you feel bad about them and invest in the scam to lose all your money. This is the tool that is used by the scammers after they are successful in contacting you. Facebook allows you to accept the friend request after reviewing the profile. You should check the profile of the person who is sending you Facebook request so you can avoid the pushing behaviour of the scammers. You should treat everyone equally and when they try to push you or try to be rude, you should end the chat. This is the best way of finishing the conversation rather than becoming rude. They will also push you to be rude so they can take advantage of your regret and ask you to invest the money in the scam.
Website bots
Have you ever seen a message coming at the bottom of the website especially the e-commerce websites that show who has invested in the program? They will also show who has purchased the latest product. This tool is amazing for legitimate websites because it allows them to showcase their product sales. The scammers have found a way of corrupting this method. The scammer will use the website bots on their legitimate-looking website. The bot will give fake sales notifications and fake profit notifications. Once a person is on their website, he will consider that these notifications are real and he will invest the money. The website bots are the latest innovation in scamming tools. If you stay on the website for a few minutes, you will see that these notifications are repeating like there is a cycle behind the scene that is giving the fake notifications. These bots can be easily made. There are many bots available online that scammers can use if they do not know how to code.
Fake social media networks
There is nothing worse than a group of people that are working together to scam the people. In most of the cases, a single person is scamming others but in rare cases, a team of scammers can join together to rob you. They will create a fake social media network and ask you to join their network to get profit. This is an amazing tool for the scammers because they can give fake posts about the fake profit. The fake profile is one thing but the fake network is the advanced tool of the scammers.
Fake testimonials
Whenever we are investing in a company, we will ask them to show the experience and how much profit they have made for the previous clients. The scammer will show you many testimonials of fake people. The person in the testimonial should easily contactable so you can ask the person about the detail of the investment. The scammer will never give your contact detail of the previous client because he has scammed all of them. He will show you some online picture that is being created by the scammer to look like real testimonials. You should always ask the company for testimonials and contact detail of the person so you can confirm.
Untraceable money transfer
This is the most important tool for scammers. They do not want anyone to trace them so they ask you to send the money in the form of Bitcoin or Western Union transfer. Untraceability of money can be an amazing way of taking money from people and running away. You should be careful when someone does not give the bank details to transfer the money and ask you to send the money in an untraceable way. They will also ask you to send them the bank details so they can create an automatic transfer sequence to increase the investment opportunities. They use this tool by pushing a strategy to get the money out of the innocent people.
How to avoid getting scammed
You have to be extremely vigilant when using social media because these Facebook messenger scams are everywhere. There are a lot of ways you can avoid social media scams. The first way is avoiding all type of investment opportunities. This is not possible for everyone because people want to make money from social media and avoiding every opportunity can put someone at loss. There are some ways you can filter the right type of opportunities and stay away from the scams. You should look for a company that is promising a profit that makes sense and the company has certifications. Checking the business address and the friends of the reference profiles can be an important factor that can help you decide if you are getting scammed or not.
Making sense
When you are looking to earn some profit, you should look for a company that promises something that makes sense. The Facebook messenger scammer will promise you eight hundred per cent profit within a week. They will say that it is without any risk. This kind of promises does not make sense because if you do the math, within a year, you will become the richest person in the world. After all, the money will multiply exponentially. If someone says that he can make you an amazing amount of money with just $1000, you can think that why they are asking this small investment from you because it can easily be generated by their system. Go with your calculations. If something is not right according to mathematics, it must be a scam.
Check for certifications
Whenever a company is telling that they are investment multiplier, you should ask for their portfolio and certifications. All the companies that have investment profiles are listed in some internationally recognised organisations. Without certifications, the company cannot do any big investment. If scammer company claim that they can give you eight hundred per cent profit within a week, they must have a certification. Even the companies that do not have this much profitability always acquire the accreditation from known organisations. The securities regulation commission of any country is mostly regulating these companies.
Checking friends
When the people will ask about the investors that already got the profit, they will give Facebook profiles. There are multiple ways of checking if the Facebook profile is genuine or not. You can check the profile picture of the person. Most of the times, the person who is claiming to be an investor will not post his original picture on the Facebook profile. All social media profiles are going to have the same type of link. Looking for the profile difference of the investors can also be helpful. If you see that the friends of the investor are all fake profiles or people from Nigeria, you can consider that this is a huge scam.
Checking business address
You should always look for the business address of the person who is asking you to invest the money. When you will ask their business address, they will send you their website and claim that the business address is written on the website. Some of us will not go to the next step of verification and think that the company is genuine and there is no need to worry about the money. You should always Google the address given on the website. When it is a scam, the address is going to be fake. They will also give a fake landline number sometimes. By checking the address and the landline number, you can easily understand the situation. You must avoid this kind of people otherwise they will push you to invest your hard-earned money.
Avoiding and reporting a scammer
You should try to avoid any kind of investment opportunities that do not look real. As already discussed that this scammer may talk to you rudely so you will talk to him back in a rude manner and he can take the advantage to get money out of you. Avoiding these scammers by not replying to their messages is the best way. Just ask them what they offer and once you find that it is a scam, do not continue the conversation and block them. There is also an option to report these scammers on social media. If you find a fake profile trying to scam people, you should report the person so others can also be saved from getting scammed.
What will you lose
There are a lot of things that you can lose in a scam. When you are scammed by someone, you may think that you have only lost your money. This is not true in all of the cases because there are different type of scammers on social media. Some of them are after your confidential information like your credit card details so they can collect the money whenever they want. If they have your credit card information, they can make a lot of online purchase and these purchases will become very difficult to trace. There is an emotional aspect of this scam also because it can decrease your confidence in investment opportunities. Some of the main things that you will lose in the social media scam are given below.
Your money
This is the main thing the scammer is after. He wants your money and he wants it fast. Normal social media scam will target to rob you of $1000. In most of the cases, they will take with thousand dollars and block you. In the case of an advanced social media scam, you will be given a 20% offer to withdraw the money. They will first say that you will not have to send any money but at a later stage, they will say a 20% fees has to be submitted before you can withdraw the full profit amount. You can lose big if you are stuck in the Facebook messenger scam.
Your confidence
You should never lose your confidence in investment opportunities. A man can never become rich until he knows how to invest properly. Making the right investment decision will require a certain level of confidence in the investment. When a person scams you and takes your money, you will lose your confidence. This can be extremely detrimental for your future investment opportunities. If a person is burned once, he will always be extra cautious about any investment. You should avoid these scams because they will harm your ability to become self-sufficient.
Your confidential information
There are some special social media scams. They are after your confidential information. In the video, it is evident that when the host asked about bank details to send the money. The scammer told that they only accept Bitcoin and Western Union. At a later stage, they accepted the offer and asked the host to send their bank details including the credit card number so they can directly transfer the money to the online portal. Giving your information online can be as harmful as giving someone your money. It can be even more harmful as you can get involved in the fraud because of your identity details. These scammers are expert in identity theft so you have to be careful when giving information online.
Conclusion
After reviewing all the details in the video, we can conclude that scammers are everywhere on social media. With their latest tricks and tools, they can scam even smart people. You must know how to avoid getting scammed. There are some tips given in the video and these tips are explained here so you can follow them easily to avoid getting scammed. A person who has lost his hard-earned money can also become less confident in the future. The scammer will not only take your money but also take your confidence for becoming a successful investor in future.
I’ve done a £1000 pound giveaway, on messenger my own Facebook and messenger and I didn’t scam anyone it was a gift card and someone wins but I don’t no who from offer vault before, but I did have a lady message me and started talking about money I new it straight away, and she didn’t even have a Facebook that I could check so I blocked her , funny you saying that, I did Victoria secrets, amazon gift cards to be won I didn’t ask for money plus it’s my own Facebook and asked people to invite 10 people and like that’s it really, that’s ok a little side money for leads and let others talk aswell, some people got close friends and some join and only come on when you have a giveaway so I think most of us including me have to put a email in to join anything even for schools!! Everything, but yes she was a scammer, I don’t ask for money on this side offer , this is my own comment, I’ve been learning for a while now but still ready for learning all the time, it the IT side of it that I can’t do 🤦♀️🤷♀️