Teens Fall for Instagram Comments Scam

Have you heard about Instagram Comments Scam?  Recently I saw a report about the frightening danger posed by those ads you occasionally see in the comments section of various articles that you read online.  They are particularly prevalent under the celebrity photos that are shown on Instagram, prompting authorities to call it the Instagram Comments Scam, but the same idea applies to other sites, as well. 

You know the ads that I am referring to ... the ones that advertise things like: "you can earn $2000 to $10,000 in a few minutes" by contacting the phone number that they give you.

The "Good Morning America" segment on which I saw on this story demonstrated exactly what happens if you make that phone call.

Apparently, the person will tell you to purchase a few of the reload packs that people use to reload pre-paid debit cards with cash.  Then, they explain that you should give them the security pin number on the back of the reload packs and, in return, they will hack into the company computer system and add "zero's" to the amount of the reload pack.  In other words, they will add a zero to a $200 card and make it worth $2000.  Of course this is illegal, but apparently teens, in particular, have been tempted by the idea of quick cash and have fallen victim to this scam.

Unfortunately, once the scammer has the security pin number, the criminal can simply steal all the money you have on the card.  They are more than happy to take your $200.

To make matter worse, they know that the majority of people who fall for this scam will never report it, because they don't want to admit that they were trying to cheat the reload card company.  So most of the time the financial loss remains a secret.

Estimates are that teens are falling for this type of fraud by the thousands.

This is a really frightening scam.  Don't be the next victim and don't let your teenager fall for it, either.  Make sure they know that this is illegal and that the person most likely to be hurt is not some "anonymous corporation," as they think.  The teens themselves are the ones most likely to end up losing money in this fraud!

I also feel that sites like Instagram need to do a better job of policing the comments that are left.  Any comments like this should be automatically deleted and the writers should be banned from the site.  Site owners have a responsibility to not let known scams flourish on their sites.

Source: "Good Morning America," ABC television network, August 20, 2014.

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