The “scammers” are a new personality race of social networks that takes advantage of their credibility, experience or popularity perceived to orchestrate sophisticated scams, often pointing to thousands of followers at the same time. They are raised as everything, from investment gurus to health experts, and are very successful: Americans reported having lost $ 1.9 billion to social media scams in 2024.
Adewale Adeife, cybersecurity consultant at EY, told Investopedia: “The scammers fuse their popularity in line with advanced deception techniques, making them especially dangerous.”
Next, we will discuss how to detect scammers and protect ourselves from their schemes.
Key control
- Scammers use the influence of social networks to deceive followers to obtain personal gains, often through emotional manipulation, artificial social test and the demand for experience they don’t really have.
- While most scammers are still depending on low technology manipulation, they are increasingly taking advantage of AI, including deep and the use of pods to seem credible and reliable.
- Protecting means verifying the statements, analyzing the background and informing suspicious activities to the authorities.
How the scammers operate
Social network scammers use a variety of tactics to manipulate and defraud their audiences, manufacturing credentials and experience to gain people’s trust. “They create the illusion of authority, sometimes even posing as doctors or financial advisors,” Adeife told Investopepedia.
In a notorious case, then Malachi Love-Robinson Adteilador put on a laboratory gown and repressed the medical jargon to convince patients and professionals that he was a doctor.
The manufacture of the artificial social test is another common tactic. The scammers buy I like false or join the commitment capsules, where participants increase the content of each one to look more popular. Some have begun to use artificial intelligence tools and defags to impersonate authority figures, further blurring the line between real and false.
Offers sensitive to time, exclusive advice of “privileged information” and emotional appeals are also typical. Adeife points out that scammers often press followers with urgent offers and show results of “Get Rich-Rich-Cick-Cick”, trusting in false testimonies and success stories.
Psychological manipulation and red flags
Scammers are experts in exploiting psychological biases such as authority bias, leading people to trust those who seem knowledgeable or celebrities. The “principle of consistency” pushes victims to make small commitments that increase over time. Emotional manipulation, which plays with fear, greed or compassion, makes followers more likely to act without due diligence.
So how can you detect a Scamfluencer? Adeife recommends see:
- Inconsistent or lazy professional history
- Pressure to use unconventional payment methods (such as gift cards or cryptography)
- Too perfect or guaranteed results
- Defensive or derogatory responses to questions or criticism
How to protect yourself
To protect themselves against Scamfluencers, experts advise:
- Verify the credentials: verify the background and claims of an influencer.
- Be skeptical about urgency: Avoid offers that require immediate actions or secrets.
- Be attentive to the red payment flags: legitimate companies rarely insist on cryptography payment or gift cards.
- Suspicious Activities Report: If you think it has been scammed, communication ceases, preserve the evidence, communicate with your bank and present reports with the police and cyber crime.
Social networks and cybersecurity professionals are intensifying their efforts to identify and eliminate the content of scammers. They are taking advantage of AI to detect false accounts and defags while sharing intelligence in various industries. But ultimately, surveillance and critical thinking remain the best defenses.
The final result
The scammers are a growing threat in the digital era, combining influence with deception to exploit large -scale trust. If you can recognize your tactics and stay alert with red flags, you can protect and help build a safer and more authentic online community.
