Giveaways on Instagram are very common, surely more than once and more than twice a friend or family member has tagged you in one. And in recent days, stories are spreading in which someone tags you claiming that you have been awarded an iPhone 13 in a raffle. But after you have won a few phones in recent days, we are sorry to have to tell you the obvious: You haven’t won an iPhone on Instagram .
This is a new scam that has appeared in recent weeks on the popular photographic social network. It is far from the first time that someone has carried out a scam on the platform, but it is striking how widespread it has been. The objective of this type of scam is usually to take you to a fraudulent website supposedly to ask for your information to send you the gift. And on that website is the trap, in which they ask for your bank details, to make a payment or some information that may be useful to them.
In the case of the new iPhone scam, the user’s attention is drawn by mentioning it in a story , in which it is ensured that you are the winner of an iPhone 13 . It is a very good way to try to win people over, since most of us tend to always look at the stories in which we have been tagged, so they will surely have caught our attention. In the same story, a link is added to which we have to go to give the data that is necessary for the phone to reach us. And that’s where the catch is.
We are told that on this page we will have to take a small survey in exchange for which we will receive the iPhone 13. But the reality is very different.
When you have answered the survey you will have to choose a box among several options. The first time it will turn out that you have not been a winner of the draw. But you will be given a second chance to try again, and the second time you will have won. Once confirmed that you are the winner of the iPhone 13, you will be asked to make a small payment of 5.99 euros to access a loyalty service that is necessary to become a winner. And this is where the scam begins at its best.
Because of course, you think that what is 5.99 euros compared to the usual price of an iPhone 13. But the reality is that this phone will never reach you . In this way, you will have paid to sign up for a service that you do not need only because they are going to give you a prize that you will not receive. The amount scammed may not seem very large, but at the end of the day it is your money. And since there are many people who fall for this scam, the profit for the scammers can be quite large, without losing anything in return.
But the real problem is much more serious. And it is that to make that payment of 5.99 euros the only way is by credit card. But the page where you have to enter your bank details has no security or encryption. Therefore, the creators of said website will be able to steal your card data very easily. And by having your data at their disposal, they will be able to make purchases online with your card for the amounts you want. Therefore, it is very possible that in the scam you lose much more than those 5.99 euros. Since your card details will end up in the hands of you, you don’t know who, but if they have organized this scam, it is unlikely that they have good intentions.
So if you’ve been tagged in a suspicious giveaway, be wary. And above all, never give out your bank account information to a site you know nothing about.
