Recently, fraudsters impersonated my social media profile. They used a slightly different spelling of my handle and copied my social media page, making it identical to my legitimate page. The only way you could tell the difference is that the fake profile had far fewer followers.

It appears that they are trying to get people to buy into an investment by directly messaging my followers, pretending to be me.

This is not the first time it has happened, and it will not be the last.

This is happening to many social media profiles and many financial services companies. This particular scam was encouraging my followers to invest in bitcoin via Luno. While Luno is a legitimate cryptocurrency exchange, and I have written about it, what these fraudsters do is post their own banking details on the chat and the victim believes that they are actually investing with Luno.

Last week, investment company Satrix told me that they are constantly being impersonated. Fraudsters set up WhatsApp groups pretending to be a Satrix investment club and give the group the banking details to invest.

People believe they are engaging with the real company and make the deposit. Satrix then receives calls from these investors who want to know why the company has not invested their money. These people often do not realise they have been conned.

Never invest via social media

No investment house or financial journalist is going to try and get you to make an investment via a social media platform. Any legitimate investment requires FICA documentation and the completing of investment details. A legitimate company will never send you banking details via social media.

If you want to invest, go to the legitimate website of the company (by typing the website address into your browser – not by clicking on a link received in an email or WhatsApp message!), download the investment documents and get the banking details off the website.

Depositing money into a bank account that you received via social media is never a good idea. It is always a scam and will always end in tears.