Researchers from the cybersecurity company Avast have detected a new scam targeting Spanish Instagram users (and from other western countries, such as Poland, France, Australia and the United Kingdom); specifically, to followers of the popular cheap clothing brand SHEIN.
As explained by Avast, the first step of this scam begins with a comment of an account in the publication of the potential victimcongratulating you on being one of the lucky few selected this year to receive a SHEIN gift card.
Needless to say that SHEIN has absolutely nothing to do with it. with all this.
DO NOT BE FOOLED! The main SCAMS in ONLINE SHOPPING and HOW TO AVOID THEM
so they make you fall
Scammers offer in the message a link to your own Instagram profile and, in addition, they mention a long list of Instagram users so that they receive a notification that encourages them to fall, too, for this scam.
When accessing the fraudulent profile, we are shown the URL of a website in which, once we access, we are ordered to answer three simple questions within two minutes, regarding our satisfaction with the SHEIN brand and its prices, as well as our intention to use the gift card.
No matter what we answer, the answers will always be approved, and we will go to a screen where we can choose three out of nine ‘gift boxes’. Whatever we choose, the first will always be incorrect and the second correct, and it will give us a alleged gift card worth several hundred euros.
Successive screens of the fraudulent web
The problem is that, in order to accept our ‘prize’, we are asked for a payment of 1.95 euros for ‘shipping costs’as well as that we provide our name and surname, telephone and e-mail… and, after that, our credit card information.
And by doing that, not only are we not guaranteeing to receive the gift card, but we are we are inadvertently subscribing to an undisclosed service (any of hundreds of options linked to this fraud) in which, In addition to the initial almost €2, we will be charged another €33 every two weeks (at least on the French website, because on the Spanish website that last piece of information is not even revealed).
In order to have a clue of what we are doing, we have to scroll to the bottom end of the web:
The ‘fine print’ of fraud.
A few brief tips
Remember:
- Do not provide your bank or card details if you are not completely clear what you are paying and to whom.
- Always be wary of those who offer you magnificent promotions… in which you have to start paying yourself.
- On social networks, avoid accounts that claim to act on behalf of a certain brand… but using a different username (and URL) than that of that. No, possibly ‘@Promo_BRAND_2023’ does not really represent “@BRAND”.
Via | AVAST
In Jared | A documentary uncovers Shein’s miseries with her workers: this is what she pays for each garment manufactured