Instagram influencer charged in get rich quick scheme
Social media is one of the more incredible tools of the 21st century. If used properly, it can lead creators to find an audience or help get important messages out to a community quickly. However, like most tools, social media can also be used for nefarious purposes. Social media has become the home of all sorts of cybercriminals from hackers to identity thieves. And of course, social media is a haven for all manner of con artists and scammers. Many of the scams on social media are quick hits with the scammers disappearing as quick as possible but in today’s case, it was a long con designed to swindle as many people as possible.
People with substantial social media followings are often called influencers due to the fact they can influence their followers into action. Often they use this influence to make themselves rich. This is usually done through endorsement deals but there are also influencers who try to scam their followers with get rich quick schemes. Often, these schemes are the usual snake-oil like MLMs. In other cases, they’re highly illegal money laundering schemes designed to use their followers as money mules.
One such case was recently broken up in New Jersey. In the Garden State, there was a social media influencer with 300,000 Instagram followers and 100,000 YouTube subscribers. She is said to have posted pictures of large amounts of cash and bank account statement on her social media telling her followers they can get rich like her. All they had to do was send her a direct message to get the secrets. The influencer was only really after the bank account information of her followers. She was allegedly part of a bigger ring that would use the bank accounts to cash stolen checks and money orders. Once they were done with that bank account, she would block that particular user. All in all, this ring was able to steal $1.5 million this way.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImXee0Ifoeg%5D
While living vicariously through social media celebrities can sometimes be fun, more often than not they are not your friends. Ultimately, you’re just part of their follower number which they use to try to increase their relevance and influence. Under no circumstances should ever give someone online your financial information. As always, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is. There is no real way to get rich quick online.
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