Hundreds of thousands of people fall victim to scams in the UK every year

The police often warn about different scams that are currently doing the rounds. Whether to social media, or neighborhood hood watch members. Scams relating to failed parcel deliveries, PayPal transaction, prize winner, prime purchase, your slow internet service and even COVID scams.

How and where
Our Scambaiting
SCAMCITY
Instagram fraudster from London ‘Tankz Unmasked.

Scammers are now covering all forms of communication in an alarming scale, through phone calls, emails and Social media in order to phish for cash. One of the biggest scams came from Luton.

But it has hit heights of new levels says one expert. Some use publicity stunts that even make their way into the news, while others use AI software tools to fool victim’s.

This article will show what’s been uncovered by others, and also what we discovered by being scambaiters ourselves as part of investigative journalism. Taking matters into own own hands because this kind of thing needs more proactive users, because the Police aren’t stopping it alone.

Behind the scenes we have encountered various suspicious posts that scammers such as our first daily live blog about an ARMY money scam as it unfolded.

I recall one of the first a few years ago on our Facebook review someone proclaiming to be a healer of ills including cancer. This is very sad as they aim to target the vulnerable in fearful situations.

When I get a cold call claiming “we are your electric company” but is not the same name will get kick me into proactive mode. I would pretend to be an old lady, or a six-year-old girl, or do an uncanny impression of Apple’s virtual assistant Siri whilst recording the call and upload to YouTube. Then I started to inform the caller, it’s possible your boss will scam people using any data you give them. Now I say “I’m glad to here from you because I doing a piece on scam fraud”, they swiftly hang up.

“scambaiter” – a type of vigilante who disrupts, exposes or even scams the world’s scammers.

Many times have I been technically knowledgeable to expose theirs links and websites are fake, and website name newly registered. They usually swear at me because I more clever than they expected.

Below are two major examples, we will post ours as we collate the evidence in a couple of weeks

Scam City: Money, Mayhem and Maseratis

SCAMCITY,journalist, Mobeen Azhar, BBC,series,

journalist Mobeen Azhar found out how investors lost millions of pounds after getting caught up in forex – foreign exchange – schemes. Broadcast May 2021

In Autumn 2020, a video clip of a man handing out cash to strangers on Plymouth High Street went viral, and even made the local paper in Plymouth.

A med student Gurvin Singh made out he had hit it big in the world of online trading and he wanted to give something back. But really it was part of a carefully-curated stream of online promotion to turn followers into forex – or foreign exchange – trading customers.

His Instagram with a following of 125,000, had pictures of his gold Maserati, designer clothes, jewellery and the video.

Gurvin Singh was an affiliate marketer, he had been used to promote a lifestyle and to make introductions to potential investors. He would be paid a finder’s fee. Assuring GS3 Trades was regulated by by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) but in fact was an offshore company with no UK protection in place.

In the end, total investments in excess of £3.8 million from new customers were lost.

According to a UK Parliamentary document, there’s been a rise in the popularity of retail trading platforms since the pandemic – but the risk for retail traders is high, and prices can drop or crash and thousands of pounds can be lost in minutes.

The pandemic has seen an increase of the number of Instagram frauds reported each month grow by almost 50%, according to figures from Action Fraud. And a rise in the reported amount of money lost from an averaged £60,000 a month, but it’s now risen to about £200,000 a month. (Full story via BBC)

Hunting the Social Media Fraudsters

Panorama is on the trail of a new generation of fraudsters. Reporter Kafui Okpattah speaks to victims and investigates how cyber scammers use social media to promote fraud. Once hidden in the shadows of the dark web, they have moved into the open online. They are in plain sight, so why are the government and big tech companies failing to stop them?

An Instagram fraudster who sells victims’ bank details and ‘how-to’ guides for other criminals for as little as £100 has been unmasked by BBC Panorama as a London university student