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Last updated on July 5th, 2024 at 10:58 am
It seems that the lottery winner giving money away via social media is back again. Granted it never really went away but it died down.
I was followed by a woman claiming to be a Mega Millions Lottery winner from Edison New Jersey.
The scam
Many of these profiles claim that they will send you X amount of money via Paypal or other money-sending/sharing apps.
The thing is I don’t think they do and they may have access to your accounts. Which in turn makes this a phishing scam.
They tend to say they will send you a few hundred to a few thousand dollars because they want to give back.
The follower
I had a new follower on Instagram over on my Creator account Nessa6297. I checked out the follower and noticed it was a scam from the get go.
The follower’s bio stated they were the $402 million dollar Mega Millions winner from Edison New Jersey. They also stated they would give $5,000 to the first 2 thousand followers.
Doesn’t that sound generous?
Doesn’t every millionaire just give random people money just because they follow them.
The profile only has 2 posts of screenshots from the payments sent.
This scam is pretty common on IG
This seems to be a pretty common scam on IG. It’s all over other social media platforms as well.
I found two other scam accounts. This one is another Lottery winner from NJ. The second was a winner from Georgia.
But I would think all you have to do is a quick search via IG and you’ll find a few fake profiles quickly.
The fake profiles entice with high $$ payouts
It seems the profiles figure if they offer strangers $5,000 (USD) or more they will gain followers. I don’t know of any lottery winner who has ever given money away via social media.
Even if they offer a huge payday think twice before sending your PayPal or other cash-sharing app info.
Report the profiles
Granted IG and Facebook are lazy at removing fake or scam accounts but if you report it it’s one step closer to being removed.
Here’s how to report a profile.
This can be done on desktop and in the app.
- click or tap the 3 dots on the desktop or 3 dots in the app.
- a menu with a pop-up. click or tap report
- You can report the profile or a post.
- If you click Something Else in the list you can report it for spam or Scam and Fraud.
- Follow the prompts to submit the report.
Your report will be submitted you will have updates. this may take a while but after you report the profile you can block it.
Don’t fall for these scams. Get the word out.
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