Scammers have been around since the beginning of civilization but as technology increases, so does the effectiveness of scammers and their schemes. Social media and its ability to connect people from all over the world has opened up so many possibilities for people with bad intentions to try and take your money. Rich DeMuro, host of ‘Rich on Tech’ on WOR Sunday nights, spoke with Curtis Sliwa and Larry Mendte in the Morning about social media scams and how effective they were last year.
“$2.1 Billion, that’s how much Americans lost last year in social media scams according to the FTC; that makes social media now the most dangerous way that scammers are reaching people,” DeMuro told hosts Sliwa and Mendte. “Investment scams are number one, $1.1 billion lost; another scam, shopping scams… and then romance scams; I’m not kidding I’ve had people call my show and say this celebrity wants to be friends with me, they love me, they like me; come on, they are going to get your trust and then they want money from you.”
DeMuro offered advice to protect yourself and talked about who is most susceptible: “Slow down, use your judgement; young people, old people, those are the two groups that are most affected because the young people haven’t seen the scams before and the older people, well, sometimes they just don’t think through everything they need to when it comes to this stuff.”
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