Meta takes a small step toward eradicating scam accounts across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp

For the unaware, “pig butchering” is a rather complex fraud scam that’s all about building trusted personal relationships online with someone only to manipulate them to deposit more and more money into an investment scheme, often using cryptocurrency, and ultimately lose that money.To build trust with the victim, these scams more often than not allow the target to withdraw small amounts of money, but as soon as they start asking for their “investment” back or it becomes clear that they don’t have more money to sent them, the scammers usually disappear with all the “loot.”This technique is called “bait and vanish” and there’s almost zero chances that the victim will ever get back a part of the investment, let alone the entire amount. These “pig butchering” schemes are so elaborate these days that it’s hard to escape from their clutches once you’re fully baited.

The “pig butchering” schemes appeared for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the Asia Pacific region. Even though they’re based in Asia, these scam centers target people across the globe, which is why they’re so dangerous.

Meta revealed that its teams have been focused on investigating and disrupting the activities of the scam centers in Southeast Asia for more than two years. The company learned that these criminal compounds force their workers to engage in a plethora of malicious activity, from cryptocurrency, gambling, loan and investment scams to government and other impersonation scams.

More often than not, these scams start on dating apps, text message, email, social media or messaging apps, then ultimately move to scammer-controlled accounts on crypto apps or scam websites that claim to be investment platforms.

Here are 7 tips that will help you spot scams easier and stay safe online:

1. Add an extra layer of protection with two-factor authentication.
2. Keep your account secure with “selfie verification.”
3. Stay wary of scams that pretend to be government websites.
4. Verify the source of unbelievable deals and don’t be rushed.
5. Look out for fake celebrity ads.
6. Beware of romance scams that use fake profiles to ask for money.
7. Watch out for retail scams that mimic trusted brands.

Although removing as many accounts as possible and as quickly as possible is great, preventing bad actors from scamming innocent people would be an even better solution. The removal of 2 million scam accounts across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is probably a very small number even for Asia alone. Not to mention that these criminal compounds will build up their scam networks quite fast if there’s no system in place preventing them from doing that. But let’s just call this endeavor a “good start” and hope that Meta will continue to remove these accounts from all over the world.