“Put a like and then you will start earning money”, the latest online scam: 40-year-old foreigner reported

Online fraud is evolving with increasingly refined techniques, aiming to exploit the naivety of users for illicit profit. Among the most recent scams, the offer of additional earnings for superficial tasks such as “Liking” videos of various kinds stands out. However, behind this apparent simplicity, much more nefarious objectives are hidden, such as stealing sensitive data, banking details and sums of money.

This particular scam is triggered by the receipt of a message, usually sent via WhatsApp, from a fake recruiter offering easy earnings in exchange for a “click”. Scammers aim to obtain personal information such as WhatsApp number, banking details, age, profession and full name of the individual.

Once the first “Likes” have been released, it is suggested to download messaging applications and subscribe to certain channels with the promise of high economic returns, for a modest investment.

This is what, in short, happened a few months ago to a woman living in Rome. Specifically, the victim joined the initiative that was proposed to her by one of these phantom recruiters and opened a profile on a famous messaging platform. From there he began to distribute “likes” according to the instructions he gradually received, receiving very small sums of money.

Having gained the woman’s trust, she was asked to make some bank transfers, also in this case for a few tens of euros, which were refunded to her, with a small increase.

This went on like this for a while, until the victim made a bank transfer of 500 euros, to “complete the mission” without receiving any further news on the matter, much less any increased reimbursement. After several attempts to contact the beneficiary, all obviously unsuccessful, the woman realized that she had been defrauded and filed a report with the Carabinieri.

The subsequent investigations and bank checks carried out by the military made it possible to identify the owner of Postepay to which the complainant transferred the money.

Having collected significant evidence against a 40-year-old foreign woman, without prejudice to the principle of presumption of innocence until a final sentence is reached, the woman was reported to the Parma Prosecutor’s Office because she was believed to be the alleged perpetrator of the scam.