Action Fraud, a UK police-led awareness centre, has confirmed there had been a surge in activity in recent months by fraudsters posting about get-rich-quick schemes. Over 356 reports of financial losses have been made in the just last five months.
As is usual of Social Media scams, the fraudsters offer a high return in 24 hours but instead just pocket the cash. Its understood more than £3million has been stolen with some victims not even reporting the crimes.
The issue poses a problem not just for Instagram as a platform, but that the fraudsters are using the applications Advertising platform in order to promote the scam. This is causing many regulatory bodies to challenge the Social Media platforms to again deal with companies who use their platforms for criminal purposes.
