A fake page has been created in the name of Solomon Jackson, Jr. on Instagram saying it will give a $1,000 scholarship to the first 100k followers of the page.
Jackson is a 2009 $259 million lottery winner, but as innocent as the instructions to receive the so called scholarship sounds, it could result in people becoming victims of identity theft.
http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html
“It was just a page and you were supposed to give a little bit of information and you were supposed to get something in return,” said Juliana Harris with the SC Department of Consumer Affairs.
Harris says her department was notified by the South Carolina Education Lottery that the scholarships were a scam. The page is asking for emails.
“Email sounds like an harmless piece of information to give to someone and we do it a lot of times to sign up for sweepstakes, but it is important to note that if you do give someone your email address and they happen to have other pieces of information that you didn’t know they had, a lot of times they can hack into other accounts that you have,” added Harris.
She says if scammers have installed a virus on a computer to detect the keystrokes, they can potentially have your email address and the password for the email address.
“Scammers know what’s out there and they know what is trending. So they’re going to go towards what’s most lucrative to them,” said Harris.
Some Instagram users have caught on to the scam, and have posted warnings for their followers.
However for those who may fall victim to the scam, they’re encouraged to alert the Federal Trade Commission as well as create a stronger password to any accounts at risk, and look through financial statements to ensure nothing unfamiliar has been purchased.
“A lot of times when someone steals your credit card number, they might use it for just a one dollar purpose, because they’re just checking to see if the number still works,” concluded Harris.
