Another tip in a series provided by the Offices of Information Security, Information Systems & Computing and Audit, Compliance & Privacy.

Recently there has been a sharp rise in financial scams propagated via social media, email, text messages, and phone calls. Social media platforms and online dating sites make it easy to create a fake persona and mislead people with bogus investment opportunities or fictional financial emergencies. Scammers identify targets via social media or online dating and meetup sites, using pretexts ranging from romance to “accidentally” dialing or direct-messaging victims to initiate contact. After rapidly cultivating the victim’s trust by feigning friendship or courtship, scammers will reap financial gains by:

• Requesting money or gift cards, often to resolve a sudden emergency, or to facilitate travel and other steps towards a shared future life.
• Sending a link to a bogus website that shows a hard-to-believe return on an investment. Posing as an experienced, successful cryptocurrency trader, the scammer vouches for the site, introducing the victim to others who claim the investment is legitimate and highly profitable. The victim then converts their own cash into untraceable cryptocurrency to invest—and incur 100% loss—in this scheme.

To protect yourself from these socially engineered financial scams:

• Limit who sees your social media posts to your friends, and avoid posting sensitive personal information. 
• If someone urges you to respond to an investment opportunity, independently verify the company and the caller. Don’t rely on assurances or testimonials from the person offering you the investment, or from their associates.
• Before entering your personal and financial information on any website, verify the legitimacy of both the company and the site.
• Protect your cryptocurrency wallet by not responding to any emails, texts, phone calls, or other requests asking for your seed phrase, even from friends. 
• Contact your bank to stop any erroneous transfer or payment you made to a fake investment or scheme and contact the police to file a report if you believe you fell victim to a scam. 
• Contact your IT support staff on how you can protect your information and computing assets. 

For additional information, contact security@isc.upenn.edu.

For additional tips, see the One Step Ahead link on the Information Security website: https://www.isc.upenn.edu/security/news-alerts#One-Step-Ahead.