Social Networking Scams

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:46 pm

Hello there,

One of the biggest scams to grow is set to be fake profiles on social networking sites, according to experts. I'm a journalist trying to research and expose these scams for a UK major newspaper, as well to try and find people who might have had their good natures taken advantage of.

Does anyone know of any scams done through social networking sites/fake profiles, or anyone who's had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of one. Any guidance appreciated.

All best

soulfix

PS: I am new here, and a great site it is.[color=indigo][/color]

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Hi and welcome to the eater.

A lot of romance scams occur through fake profiles on dating sites and MySpace type sites. What newspaper do you work for?

If I was a journalist, and wanted to do an expose on scams, I would concentrate on traditional 419 fraud. Do you know that a lot of the scammers are based in the UK, and a lot of them are based in London?

Members here have had many African scammers waiting at london venues to meet with them, members set meetings up for the scammer to be caught on a webcam, under the pretext of meeting them to hand over fees, now that would make a good expose for your newspaper.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:14 am

Thanks for the reply, and for the info.

Yes, I watched such a baiting exercise by one member on You Tube. Very amusing.

The research I am doing is for The Guardian...and while it would make my life a lot easier if the article was 419 fraud, the new thing seems to be a similar kind of thing, but the scams are operated through fake profiles on Social Network sites, I imagine the scammers hope these profiles will make them look more genuine, but that's exactly why it'd be great to expose such set ups. I have found a few dating sites, but any anywhere else?

Thanks

soulfix

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:22 am

If you have a look around our love scams forum there is a lot of good info on how these scammers work, links to a few sites to check out....it's a wealth of info on those sort of scams Very Happy

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

soulfix wrote:

the new thing seems to be a similar kind of thing, but the scams are operated through fake profiles on Social Network sites

It's not really a new thing, fake profiles have been going on for years, it probably just seems like a new thing to people with not much knowledge of these type of scams, so when they see a few news stories, they think it's a new thing.

As Friday suggested, go and have a good rummage through our Love/Dating Scam Forum, here:

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=44

That will give you a lot of information about how they operate their scam formats, the photos they use and where they get them from, more often than not they are stolen images from Hawaiian modelling agency websites, and then there are the scammers who use Yahoo and Hotmail messenger to entrap their victims etc.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:38 am

As Scam Patroller says the fake dating profiles have been around for a long time (often set up by the sites themselves):

http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/craigslist-sex-baiting/

http://www.cupidsreviews.com/article/Fake-Profiles.html

Most of the time they just use the profiles to get people to keep signing up again in the hope that they will actually meet someone, which is technically a scam as it is conning people out of money with false pretences (albeit not to the same level as the 419 lads)
Then of course you get the old "I love you and need you to send me money for a plane ticket" scam which is much more similar to the 419. Looking around is easily enough to put off all but the most determined of people from online dating.

If you want the biggest load of dodgy (in every way) profiles on the net then try here: http://adultfriendfinder.com , many people claim that this is used mainly by scammers and call-girls.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:59 am

Thanks fellas, fella-esses

Like you say, it's probably a new thing to many who are encountering social networks, for the first time.

Is there any more likely casualties as social networking gets more serious, with the growth of the likes of Ecademy and Linkedin?

Anybody see the fake profile Campari put up on myspace as part of a marketing campaign? That was taken down recently.

Best

Soulfix

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:06 am

I think this will continue to worsen as a problem as long as a lot of the dating sites turn a blind eye or, as happens on some of them, set up these fake profiles themselves. A lot of people are time poor nowadays and see online dating as a quick and easy way to meet someone and unscrupulous sites prey on their loneliness. But as long as the sites are making money why should they tighten security? Many people ripped of this way feel to embarrased to try and get any refund so the extent of the problem at the moment is hard to judge. I know that i'm looking more at dodgy behaviour by the sites then 419 lads but this seems to be a growing problem.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:23 am

Just to proove a point Adult Friend Finder just dumped a load of spam links in our General Chat Forum Rolling Eyes

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:22 am

IMV ..... any sites such as http://www.linkedin.com/ where you can post profiles are open to fake/false entries that can lead to frauds.

Sites like this and http://www.ecademy.com/ will just be another opportunity for fake profile scams. I defy any Site Owner to say the site is 100% fake free

Even responsible Site Admins can only make a certain amount of checks to ascertain the validity of the profile ..... and then there is a way around anything. (that's why I'm still here Wink

)

If there is an angle a fraudster will exploit it !

I see that ecademy have their bases covered

Quote:

Note as per the terms and conditions of membership: The Ecademy will not intervene in disputes between members and do not accept any liability to any party whatsoever for any disputes arising due to postings on the website, messages, emails, telephone call or meetings by a particular member(s). Members enter into a trading relationship at their own risk and take full responsibility to undertake their own due diligence prior to engagement of any sort.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:21 pm

Thanks...was wondering if you'd got wind of any class examples, for example to the 419 brigade have any equivalents that they post on social networking sites? That kind of thing.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:21 pm

@soulfix

I tend to see most of the posts on this site, and I can't seem to remember any posts relating to scams on the types of sites you are referring to (maybe others can).

Maybe the demographics of the people who genuinely use these "social networks" aren't the the type of people who would stick their head over the wall and shout "I've been scammed!" . ...It may be just as you say, it's a new thing, unlike dating sites, ebay, Craigslist and the ilk

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 2:18 pm

@soulfix

why not get a profile somewhere and try on a scammer for size.

I have no experience in that area, but I'm sure someone here can give you a quick recipe for that.

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 2:18 pm

Check out these threads:

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=100637&highlight=myspace

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=96260&highlight=myspace

http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=98129&highlight=myspace

And many others that I found using the forum Search function. Cool

Wannabe Baiter Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 96

Here is a yahoo group created by a couple of romance (online dating) scam victims to help others:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancescams/
You can read the messages without joining, but by joining (it is free) you can get access to many files.
According the site owners the members of the group reported more than 2 million dollars loss ($7000 average).
You can read there hundreds of real stories, follow how people handle the aftermath etc.
You can find there American, English, Australian victims as well.