tt was reported recently that the FBI has been investigating some serious fraud attached to the social media platform LinkedIn. The fraudsters had not hacked into the platform but rather are posing as legitimate financial advisors, preying upon individuals who are looking to get into the crypto economy.
It was reported by CNBC that this threat is considered to be a “significant threat.” Typically what these individuals do is they request to be accepted into your network and then begin a dialogue through messaging offering to help individuals break into the crypto economy. Because of the level of credibility attached to LinkedIn, such connections are considered to be legitimate. Ultimately the individual is directed to move their investment to a particular bogus site that is controlled by those who are recommending their investments. A number of very active investigations are being carried out by the FBI currently. Some individuals are said to have lost some significant small fortunes where they invested into the crypto strategies and then ultimately moved it to a platform that was controlled by those committing the fraud. LinkedIn acknowledged the increase in such fraud, saying that they had removed 32 million fake LinkedIn accounts. According to the story in CNBC, LinkedIn members reported 127,000 fake profiles that had been removed from the platform. When it comes to investment, LinkedIn is probably not the number one source to look for a trusted financial advisor, especially in the case of cryptocurrency.
I myself was invited to connect with a new contact on LinkedIn. They were said to be a marketer, but the first thing they started to ask me was about investing in crypto currency. Since my background is from the New York Stock Exchange, I told her that I really wasn’t interested. She tried to get my interest, but I just blew it off. Who knew that this could have been a fraud?
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