In Sweden, high-end products are advertised for a market price that’s affordable to the general public. Such products include brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and even Apple products are advertised as well. This is a new wave of Instagram Cryptocurrency fraud wherein anticipated buyers are being misled into trading fiat money to cryptocurrency. Growing Instagram is been easier than before for the businesses that would spend a thousand dollars on Ads and influencers marketing.
To get rid of this recent scheme, before purchasing an item from Instagram, don’t get deceived with its bargain price right away. Instead, consider reviewing these 7 step process we want you to know:
- Be Consider your doubts – We know high-end products are expensive. The first thing you need to know is the reason why such a luxury product is advertised with a great discount. It is suspicious to see a high-end product discounted to about 80%-90% and if you’re being told that the seller needs money right away, for me, it’s a sign that the seller is in a rush to complete the transaction and then disappear. A 10% discount is reasonable, but 80%-90% is not.
- Ask the sellers to provide more pictures of the item – If the seller is a scammer, basically, he doesn’t have the item on hand and if you ask for more different pictures of the item, they probably can’t provide it. If they can give one, ask another picture taken from a different angle. Think of any strategies you can ask the seller to see if they really have the product handy.
- Check the pictures thoroughly – review if the picture is originally captured by the seller or if it is just grabbed from a profile viewable to the public. Use reverse image search to see if there is a similar or related photo from any websites over the internet. This will help you find out if this has been used by someone else.
- Make a payment using your Debit or Credit card – ask the seller if he owns a company or an e-commerce website and if he does, try to ask his company’s link to payment pages. This is to make sure that your money is safe and just in case you are scammed, there is a chance that you can file a chargeback and the seller will be notified about it. A chargeback is only good for those products that are damaged when the package arrives, incorrect item received, or product not delivered. This can’t be applied if the transaction was through cryptocurrencies so better be wary before sending your payment.
- Avoid sending payments via Wire Transfer or via Cryptocurrency – the reason you’re discouraged to use these payment methods is that it’s completely different from using credit/debit cards. With Wire and Cryptocurrency, you can’t apply for a chargeback; basically, there is no way for you to get your money back.
- Check if the cryptocurrency broker is legit – make sure to check the logotypes of the name of the cryptocurrency broker if it’s legit by checking if it is engaged in e-commerce. Feel free to get in contact with a currency exchange provider to know if it’s legit or not.
- In case the account looks a little suspicious – flag the account and report it as potential fraud to the authorities, law enforcement authorities, this mostly allows reporting fraudulent cases on the internet.
As time goes by, scammers’ way of thinking evolves and they might find another way to scam people, so it is our own responsibility to protect ourselves by being cautious enough and not easily be deceived with what we see online.
These steps we are providing in this article are something you can get ideas of what to do, however, it may not be applicable when scammers do things differently.