Victims speak out over ‘tsunami’ of fraud on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/16/victims-speak-out-over-fraud-on-instagram-facebook-and-whatsapp

by pseudolus • 3 years ago

83 75 3 years ago

paulpauper• 3 years ago

Seems simple enough: if someone asks for money on Facebook/Instagram, just say no. Don't buy anything advertised there either.

kube-system• 3 years ago

For the people who get fooled, it's not that simple. The landscape of apps and the way people use them change quick enough that there is always a significant non-zero number of people who aren't aware of which situations are safe and which aren't. Scammers will always show up in the places where people can be fooled, even if you suggest that someone completely disconnect from the internet.

owlninja• 3 years ago

Yea I hear of scams nowadays where people get a phone call and it's someone posing as a cop or ambulance worker and they know the name of one of your family members and try to scare you into thinking that something happened to them. I forget all the details but it's been happening, now just imagine you get a phone call from an AI carbon copy of your grandkids voice or something.

toss1• 3 years ago

>Don't buy anything advertised there either.

YUP

Farcebook trying to convince everyone that Craigslist is unsafe (as if FB was safe) was one of the biggest scams ever.

Yes, it undermined CL stealing a bunch of the adverts, but it sure as hell made nobody more safe.

jstarfish3• 3 years ago

These days, if anyone is asking for money for any reason, it's usually a scam-- sadly, even if it's a family member. (Fleecing family is always a good way to begin a career in fraud, since they trust by default and are always reluctant to press charges. Ask Bernie Madoff!)

The kids in particular have figured out how to couch grifts in medical care and college tuition-- two outlets donors have no visibility into and cannot expect any sort of accountability for. Raising money and pretending to execute is how the scam generally goes since you can't verify anything.

Good faith is dead. Trust without transparency and you will be exploited.

zgluck2• 3 years ago

I think it's more like an omni-channel tsunami of fraud on all possible channels that has been gaining speed for a long time and appears to be increasing with an exponential growth rate.

The worst frauds still happen over phone and involve banking and old people.

kitsunesoba• 3 years ago

It certainly feels that way. Scams and fraud grow more common and brazen by the day.

briffle• 3 years ago

Well yeah. Because fraud is the victims fault and they have to fix it. At least in the view of our current laws.

If someone impersonates me, and uses my 'super secret' information to get a new credit card in my name, (like birthdate, DL number, or the number I have to put on any credit application, employment, etc) its now MY responsibility to correct my credit reports, contact people sending me to collections, file police reports, etc.

My state (OR) just this week lost drivers license info on every license in the state to to a hack on the MoveIT zero day. They recommend you check your credit reports for suspicious activity.

They just shoved responsibility for the mess of all our drivers licenses onto 3.5M of us to fix...

wlesieutre• 3 years ago

Only going to get worse with conversational AIs and voice synthesis

Nextgrid4• 3 years ago

It's a combination of:

1) the economic situation in some countries such as the UK being so dire that the risk/reward calculation of crime now starts to be worth it. If people see no way out in a legitimate career, they will turn to crime because they have nothing to lose.

2) would-be criminals are finally noticing that law enforcement has completely dropped the ball on investigating/prosecuting these crimes, so it's literally "free money" with no actual risk of being caught

totallywrong4• 3 years ago

I've been thinking for a while now, as we've had social media for many years already. What good has it brought to society? Scams, addiction, FOMO, cancel culture, gossip, missinformation, bullying, and the most self-centered generation in history, to name a few. All of it instantly and on a global scale. It's truly one the worst things that ever happened to society IMO.

spicymapotofu• 3 years ago

Many people who never could afford to call international family now speak and see each other daily. I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered, but disagreeing with Socratic proclamations is as old as society itself.

Retric• 3 years ago

That started with IM/Skype style VOIP calling and has nothing to do with social media.

From a utility standpoint, social media seems to have largely filled the same role email used to among distant family.

totallywrong4• 3 years ago

I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered

Really? Well I might be biased but all I see these days is people trying very, very hard to curate the perfect internet image of themselves.

jjulius• 3 years ago

I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered...

Emphasis mine, as a reminder to be careful with absolutes. It's a bit of a stretch to suggest that nobody has become more self-centered due to social media.

rcme• 3 years ago

I saw a very interesting video of Michael Jackson filming himself in a mirror with one of the first handheld cameras. What was interesting about the video is that he's filming himself in the mirror and the first thing he says is "I'm not a narcissist." At the time, it was considered very narcissistic to film yourself, even for one of the world's biggest pop stars. When photos had limited distribution, their purpose was to remember what you had done in the past. Now, the purpose of photos is more to show off to others, so it's become the norm to include yourself in photos. I think it's fair to call this phenomenon self-centered in nature.

WarOnPrivacy3• 3 years ago

Many people who never could afford to call international family now speak and see each other daily.

I get why electronic communication is a boon but I am sometimes confused by folks who prefer a public communication medium for their private comms.

anonzzzies4• 3 years ago

Calling international for ‘free’ happened before social media; it was not as widespread but that would’ve eventually have happened without social media as the tech and products were already there quite some time before. I think we thank the mass uptake to smartphones more than social media.

stubybubs5• 3 years ago

the most self-centered generation in history

Boomers?

Also I'm not sure cancel culture is a bad thing. It's just negative branding for what is essentially the first time marginalized groups could have their voices heard. People who are used to writing op-eds and never hearing any criticism of their ideas are finally getting some negative feedback and they're super mad about it. You get absolutely unreal outrage about that, like this NYT opinion:

For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

That is the first sentence in the piece. Unreal. There has never been a right to say what you want without being shamed or shunned. Shaming and shunning is part of free speech. Boycotts are part of free speech.

That's how backwards this whole "cancel culture" outrage is. Better to call it accountability culture, or response culture, or feedback culture.

jstarfish3• 3 years ago

No amount of euphemisms makes up for what cancel culture really is-- cyberbullying at scale.

Scott Cawson, the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, was doxxed, harassed, and had death threats issued against himself and his pregnant wife.

His crime against society? Being outed as a Republican political donor. Not a crime, just exercising his right to participate in democracy. His ability to do so was subsequently attacked and stripped from him by brave keyboard warriors.

Death threats are an actual crime. They are not free speech. Nobody's been held accountable for that though.

This is the problem with modern "equality" movements. They don't want parity at all. They just want to tilt things enough in their favor so they can be the ones doing the bullying.

lordfrito• 3 years ago

what is essentially the first time marginalized groups could have their voices heard
There has never been a right to say what you want without being shamed or shunned

So... when the marginalized groups start getting cancelled, do I get to say "well they don't have a right not to be shunned"?

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

We're living in a new McCarthyism.

stubybubs5• 3 years ago

Super sad somebody deleted their comment comparing marginalized people tweeting at millionaires to the lynching of Emmett Till. Really great stuff, it's why I'm on HN, for those big brain takes.

olibhel• 3 years ago

Social media has absolute changed the way people live their lives in my country - India.

Personally, it has made me lose interest in my favorite outdoor activity i.e. hiking because of too many people showing up. Ex: I won't set foot on a trail on weekends[0].

[0] https://i.imgur.com/7V4cd4Z.png

johnchristopher• 3 years ago

Er.. is everywhere like that ?

pengaru4• 3 years ago

Mmm, overpopulation.

Will you be blaming social media for their overcrowded trains too?

https://imgur.com/gallery/2Xo9x

data-ottawa• 3 years ago

At least people are getting outside and doing things together.

It’s the same in Ontario Canada, which can be frustrating.

But I am curious what activities are now missing all those people.

waboremo• 3 years ago

None of those things are exclusive to social media, some of them aren't even bad (gossip), and the rest have equal positives (misinformation = abundant information, bullying = uplifting each other).

I always question what intention does someone have painting social media in such broad strokes. Especially when we consider who actively gains from narrowing where information can be accessed.

totallywrong4• 3 years ago

I see your point, the problem with social media is the exposure and scale. Kids these days can't fool around like we did, someone is always recording and you can go viral. I read not long ago about kids with severe anxiety in school due to the constant fear of the wrong photo or video going on social media.

And the abundant information, is that really a good thing? How much of it is good? Remember the Trump election, the amount of outright lies thrown around and the level of polarization, with even family members unable to speak to each other.

I'm not saying there's nothing good at all between the mud, but on the whole I think it's been a disaster.

mejutoco2• 3 years ago

Information reduces uncertainty. A lot of talking or a lot of misinformation does not increase information but noise.

flangola7• 3 years ago

It is on average beneficial for LGBT+ kids, especially if their family or local culture are unsupportive or hostile.

dmoose• 3 years ago

I would have agreed with you until recently. It appears that much of the anti LGBT+ sentiment sweeping communities and legislatures is being driven via social media. This can easily swing the pendulum back to net negative.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

I think the larger it grows the worse it gets.

Small group to talk to family or friends? Great!

The local community? Begin noticing dbags and crazies, people nasty to each other

National or larger? Forget about it, and now it's ratfucked by bad actors, shills, foreign intel, and other ilk.

Moderation also gets worse because these large entities try to create blanket standards with such a wide variation of cultures involved.

balder1991• 3 years ago

That’s my perception too. Most social media started kinda good because there were mostly enthusiasts at first, then they descend into insanity. I feel for my mom, caught up in Facebook because most people her age is also there. It’s a mix of political trolls and ignorant people arguing over things they don’t know with all kinds of fallacies together in a sort of crowd crazy that I see nowhere else. I try to make her leave sometimes, as it is bad for her mental health, but she doesn’t listen to me and I admit it would cut her out from the only group she’s part of, which is family spread across the country.

skciva• 3 years ago

Your username is hilarious in context of this post. Sure there are a lot of horrible things that it's introduced. Replace social media with any other technology..what good have computers brought? What good has the automobile brought?

It is all perspective and humans will use tools for good and bad. There is plenty of good in the world thanks to social media.

marcosdumay• 3 years ago

I don't think there is any other technology that compares with social networks on the rate of bad to good consequences and is still widely adopted. Maybe mass manufactured military-spread drugs like they used in WWII. But it's quite hard to quantify those.

But, of course it created a bunch of good thing. Nothing that spreads that widely has only bad consequences. And yes, I like the good consequences quite a lot too. It's too bad most of the companies keeping those networks are adamant in destroying all the good value and keeping only the bad.

totallywrong4• 3 years ago

I think any technology must be judged based on what it turns out to be long term. Computers and vehicles, for all their issues, have brought untold advancement and comfort to society. Social media.. well you tell me.

anonzzzies4• 3 years ago

What are the long term good things social media brought that we did not have before and would not have without it? Let’s say a world where internet had exploded as it did but instead with many, not connected, forums, newsgroups and irc servers. Would we not have the same benefits without the crap part? What good part did social media do here?

stickfigure• 3 years ago

What on earth? I keep up with my (physically) distant friends through Facebook, people who I would have completely lost touch with if it weren't for social media.

This reads like you trying to stand between me and my friends. If you don't like social media that's fine for you, but the rest of us quite like it and that's no business of yours. Butt out.

anonzzzies4• 3 years ago

You like social media but you take things written by random people on a forum as personal attacks?

rocketnasa• 3 years ago

On Facebook, any time I see someone post with the words 'my account was hacked' they get a dozen automated replies from other users offering services to fix their account. In most cases, the person isn't even hacked, their account was cloned/impersonated. With the kind of money Facebook has, they can't set a honeypot account up and post 'my account was hacked' on it? This has been going on for months.

sincerely• 3 years ago

Same with the bot accounts offering tickets for sale on the event page for concerts. It seems like such low hanging fruit to clean this sort of thing up that should be noticed by anyone who works there and actually uses the site.

Nextgrid4• 3 years ago

With the kind of money Facebook has, they can't set a honeypot account up and post 'my account was hacked' on it?

All of those posts still count as "engagement" and even scammers generate ad impressions, so why would they not only kill the golden goose, but actually spend money doing so?

jsbg• 3 years ago

It's astonishing how few patterns there are for scams on fb/ig that anyone with introductory statistics knowledge could build a classifier for even with hand-collected data, but meta lets them go on for years.

Animats• 3 years ago

"According to research by high street bank TSB, 80% of purchase fraud cases reported to the bank come from platforms owned by Meta, which includes Instagram, as well as Facebook and WhatsApp."

If Meta was serious about their "real names" policy, this would be less of a problem.

Sparkyte• 3 years ago

This is a huge problem with social media and it is only going to get worse.

Another important thing to understand is the amount of fake propaganda passing off a news. Not just propaganda but we categorize some editorial style talkshows on YouTube as news. News itself isn't supposed to be bias. It isn't supposed to be entertaining. It is supposed to be just informative.

veave• 3 years ago

According to research by high street bank TSB, 80% of purchase fraud cases reported to the bank come from platforms owned by Meta, which includes Instagram, as well as Facebook and WhatsApp.

Well obviously since those are the most used platforms. Interesting that a bank, which should be full of clever people, doesn't know to take MAUs into consideration when seeing which platforms produce more fraud.

SkipperCat• 3 years ago

I think a lot of this is because a large amount of our society grew up without the Internet. To them, everything that looks professional is professional. They are easy targets for scammers.

Millennials and Gen-Z were raised on the Internet and therefore have an innate understanding of what is real and most importantly, what can be faked. Its a lot harder to scam. them.

If I told my parents about a Nigerian oil executive who needs to move $20 million out of a bank account, they would scratch their head. If I told my 28 year old co-worker, he'd laugh and understand the joke.

So, maybe in 20+ years, nobody will fall for these scams anymore.

er4hn• 3 years ago

Scams, and scammers, evolve. There will always be members of society that are lonely, desperate for money, or have some other situation that causes them to ignore red flags in a Nigerian 419 scam.

Technology also enables new scams as time goes on. You can now use automation and AI-esque tools to research potential marks, simulate the voice of a loved one in a plausible distressing situation, and call to ask for money. That sort of thing was much harder 20+ years ago and is today as plausible as setting up a cold call list for selling home insurance was back in the day.

sebzim4500• 3 years ago

Presumably all the gullible people will lose their money to AI scams and then there won't be any AI scams.

Nextgrid4• 3 years ago

A major danger is that there's money to be made pretending that everything that looks professional is professional and there are no risks nor bad actors. There's a generation or two that got taught (either actual teaching or just experience) that the internet is a dangerous place. When I was a child I was told not to share any personal details on the internet for example and that people could be lying/misrepresenting themselves.

Nowadays, social media and all Big Tech platforms rely on people forgetting such advice and pretending like everything is trusted and there are no bad actors anywhere, because they themselves are a bad actor. They wouldn't want a wary user that never provides personal details nor makes any payments, because this also means they won't provide any personal details to Facebook nor spend any money on a Facebook-advertised product.

I'm especially worried about the newer generations, those that never experienced the early days of the internet and started off in "walled gardens" and phones/tablets. Those are prime targets for scammers.

WarOnPrivacy3• 3 years ago

So, maybe in 20+ years, nobody will fall for these scams anymore.

I do IT security; people send dodgy stuff to me for vetting. But I'm naturally on my haunches for those.

I once got an gift card scam email sent from a friend's account. Scam was newish and arrived while I navigating a parking garage after a concert, car full of family. I initially responded ("w/ family, back to you soon") and was a few miles down the road before I had enough brain free to properly consider it.

These guys spray and prey. Eventually they hit something.

BrandonS113• 3 years ago

The demographic most likely to fall for scams is the 20 year old. So. no.

Timon3• 3 years ago

Wow, I didn't expect that:

In 2021, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Z young adults (ages 18-59) were 34% more likely than older adults (ages 60 and over) to report losing money to fraud, and some types of fraud stood out. Younger adults reported losses to online shopping fraud – which often started with an ad on social media – far more often than any other fraud type, and most said they simply did not get the items they ordered. Younger adults were over four times more likely than older adults to report a loss on an investment scam. Most of these were bogus cryptocurrency investment opportunities. And this age group reported losing money on job scams at more than five times the rate of older adults. Many college students reported that they were scammed after getting a message at their student email address about a so-called job opportunity. The median individual reported fraud loss by people 18-59 was $500 in 2021.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spo...

SturgeonsLaw• 3 years ago

How many people in their 20s and 30s fell for get-rich-quick crypto rugpulls? It wasn't tech-illiterate Boomers buying memecoins.

Nextgrid4• 3 years ago

I wonder, what are the police doing in this case? These scams appear to target random people in the open so it seems like just setting up honeypot accounts and waiting for scammers to engage with then will yield plenty of information, including a money trail that should lead to whoever is the beneficiary of the scam.

Same thing with phone scams - have carriers route all inactive numbers to a police-run call center where scambaiters not only waste the time of scammers (potentially killing the entire business model of the scams) but also collect information such as the target bank account where the scammed money ends up.

Oh yeah I know, why spend effort investigating actual crime when you have an endless supply of victimless "crime" of people consensually growing/trading/consuming a plant?

expertentipp• 3 years ago

I remember my trauma after watching grim and depressing movie "Requiem for a Dream" including the scene when mother of protagonist joins some cult or MLM and becomes addicted to some drugs. In the end I realized "it's just a movie, it's all good". Now I see my parents uncritically consuming mostly on mobile portals with "news", social media, obvious propaganda which agitates and addicts them. What's worse they ask me whether I'm with or against them on the topics. I'm terrified and heartbroken.

SQueeeeeL• 3 years ago

The fundamental cultural conditions of isolation and low meaning really haven't moved much on the needle since the 90s (look at the writing of David Foster Wallace to see what I'm talking about)

The Internet has just exasperated an already present issue of low empathy, reactionary politics, and get rich quick schemes

iJohnDoe• 3 years ago

I got “scammed” three times on social media.

1. Purchased electric scooters by following an Instagram ad. It was around Christmas time. The scooters were really cool looking. Turned out, they used the promotional videos from another company’s real product. I did get the money back from the credit card company.

2. Purchased a pillow by following an Instagram ad. Never received it. It turned out to be a fake store to just steal people’s money. Wasn’t enough money to worry about it.

3. Followed an ad from Twitter for a marshmallow company. Placed an order as a gift for someone else. Turns out they never actually send orders. They just take people’s money. The online store was amazingly designed. Awesome photos and functioned really well. I think it was a legitimate business at one point, but decided it was easier to just steal people’s money. There wasn’t any reason to think the store was a scam. If I checked online reviews first though, I would have found the warnings posted everywhere not to order from them.

Came close to placing an order from a clothing store. Prices were slightly too good to be true. This time I checked online reviews and it turns out they never ship orders either.

All three times were years apart. Happened while mindlessly scrolling and when your guard is down. I don’t order stuff from random sites either, but the products were just the right thing to peak interest.

shmde• 3 years ago

Not trying to victim blame you but I will, Facebook/Insta/Twitter are not exactly reliable marketplace. Never ever order stuff from social media websites. Thats why they are called that.

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Victims speak out over ‘tsunami’ of fraud on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp

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