Cyber scam involving social media influencers surfaces

The police say they have identified a novel cyber scam involving social media influencers.

Social media influencers have a large number of followers and companies often pay them to advertise their products through their handles. Many celebrities are also roped in.

“Fraudsters are taking advantage of the rise in the number of influencers on social media. They would pose as representatives of an established firm or brand and entice influencers with attractive advertising deals. They would propose to manage the advertisements on behalf of the influencer. Thereafter they collect personal details or social media account passwords and take full control of the page or handle run by the influencer,” said a YouTuber who was a victim of such fraud recently.

The officers of the Cyber Crime Cell said there was no specific complaint on the subject yet.

"An advertisement on gambling or of fake investment can not be inserted in mainstream media. These fictitious operators may use these social media influencers who may not be aware of the consequences. There are social media influencers who promote only fictitious mobile apps. The fraudsters also on the guise of followers to Influencers on social media send suspicious links. After making the victims click in and the data logged onto, the fraudsters take full control over the page or channel run by the influencer. Then they will post their content - it could be anything ," said Cyber Law Expert N.Karthikeyan.

Women influencers are targeted with defamatory or abusive content. A woman social media influencer who was a candidate in recent elections said, " After uploading my affidavit into ECI website, I had three lakh downloads. I got good reviews on a social media page but only one person alleged that I had hacked the ECI site- which was baseless. He went on levelling allegations on me. I just ignored it."

"We have lodged a complaint against an instagrammer who specifically targeted women influencers. He texted asking them to join in an Instagram live. If they accepted and came on live, he would level baseless allegations. If they didn’t agree to live as he was the stranger, he projected them as scammers, " said Joe Praveen Michael, an event manager.