Social Media Payment Scams: Alert & Prevention Tips
Social Media Payment Scams: Alert & Prevention Tips
Twitter bots are tricking users into making PayPal
and Venmo payments into fraudsters’ accounts.
Social Media Payment Scams: Recently, a new form of scam has appeared on Twitter, in which fraudsters are using Twitter bots to trick unaware tweeters into making PayPal and Venmo payments into their cloned accounts. Several brands have been using bots to provide a good customer experience, while fraudsters also found a way to trick customers and make money off of it.
This emerging scam is performed when fraudsters make a fake profile using the same name and profile picture of an original brand and make users believe that it’s real to fool them into making payments. Just after the payment is sent by the user to the fraudster’s cloned account, they instantly block them.
Social media payment scams: An Alarming Situation
PayPal, Venmo, and other similar services are the common way of making online payments for donations, shopping, and many more. These bots get triggered on some specific keywords like “Paypal” or “Venmo”. In addition to stealing payments, these bots can also be used to access users’ personal information, which includes their bank account details, to withdraw all the money from their accounts.
A screenshot is also shared by a user when the bot is tricking them into making payments.