The short answer is: No. Scammers are everywhere, and Medium is not an exception.
I have been writing about online romance scams for two years, not just on Medium but pretty much everywhere.
I have also been scambaiting and reporting scammer accounts on different platforms for three years, and documenting the events. So, it is safe to say that I can spot a scammer’s account from miles away.
My experience with scammers on Medium began shortly after I started writing about the subject matter. Based on my experience, I put together some information about the most common signs of a scammer account on Medium for you. Please keep in mind that these are mainly cryptocurrency and investment scams-focused fake accounts.
Let’s have a look…
Free Account
Scammers live on free accounts on every platform they’re operating on. Since they won’t have just one account to scam people, paying for multiple accounts across different platforms would be costly. If any of those scamming platforms are offering free accounts like Medium, trust me, they are on it.
Sometimes There is No Profile Picture
In most cases, this is the norm because they have to create a large number of accounts for the scam to be promoted and succeed.
Here’s an example of such a fake account, which was reported and deleted by Medium last year:
However, this was the case last year. Now I see many fake accounts using profile photos. Stock photos, to be precise.
If you look closely, you notice two different accounts with the same person’s photo wearing something different, as in the screenshots below:
You might also like to pay attention to the horizontal photos that have not been cropped for a round profile picture. Real people take their profile picture seriously and try to get it right.
Sometimes, They Misspell Their Own Names
If it’s your own name and you’ve typed it several times before, then you tend not to get it wrong, but here’s the thing…
The scammers create many fake accounts in one day, and they make mistakes. Just like in Hamiltion, Washington’s situation:
Bad Grammar or Spelling Mistakes
Scammers mostly come from West African countries, and they’re not well educated. Even if their official language is English, their language skills are still poor.
During a conversation with a real-time romance scammer, the scammer thought that I was being racist. I wasn’t, but he had to ask the question:
“Are you racial?”
That was some time ago, but we recently had a funny encounter with a romance scammer. He claimed to have a degree in English, and yet when he was confronted by one of my anti-scam sisters, he was shocked to be accused of being a scammer. He kindly asked, “Do you have prove?”
They May Use a Fake Star
If you are a paid member of Medium, the star you get is positioned over your profile photo. If a scammer pretends to be a legitimate, paid account, they use it next to their names. Just like in this scammer account below:
They May Use Celebrity Photos as Their Profile Photo
Scammers tend to put their eggs into several different baskets, and celebrity scams are just another revenue for these fraudsters.
However, their well-set scamming habits follow them from one platform to another.
Here’s an example of a fake account using Natalie Portman’s photo:
You might think someone is a huge fan of Portman’s, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a scammer, right? Ms. Amanda Scott says, “Let’s make a positive change together.” And yet she doesn’t write and post anything on Medium even though it’s a great medium — pun intended — to do so, especially if making a positive change is what she really wants to do.
Her list of accounts she’s following here is another story. Check it out:
As you may have guessed, those two accounts, Blake S. and Sandra H., are also scammers. This Amanda Scott account is just one of those fake accounts created for the purpose of clapping for their posts on Medium to make them look legit or create a sense of trust.
They Follow Medium Staff Account
They do this on Instagram as well. Let me explain…
A group of Nigerian scammers I had the pleasure of dealing with — sarcasm alert — all followed Instagram’s official account as well as National Geographic and Menopausal Mayhem Mothers account.
The first two accounts give them some sort of pseudo-normalcy and make them look like people with real interests, but the last one provides a large number of older women who are potential victims. Unfortunately, they’re online romance scammers’ favourite. I feel like scammers almost have a vulnerability radar to spot people who are likely to fall for their scams.
Their Followers Have No Posts
When you have a look at their list of followers, you find investors, marketing people, bloggers or even writers who have no posts. Writers who are not writing on Medium? Really?
Well, they’re not on Medium to write. They’re not on Medium because they have a message to share. They’re on Medium because they are looking for vulnerable individuals to scam.
Here’s a freelance writer who doesn’t write. Nella Lingby also has a gender crisis by the looks of things as she’s talking about his brush.
By the way, she or he is following only Medium Staff and Sandra H. account (the fake-star one), which I mentioned earlier. No one else.
Scammers Tend to Have a Main Account
I would call those accounts ‘mother ship’ or ‘main hub’ because that’s where they post semi-useful-looking material. All the other fake accounts they created here on Medium follow the ‘main hub accounts’, clap for the posts, and, in some cases, make comments. By doing that, they basically endorse their fake ‘main’ accounts by supporting these accounts with other fake accounts.
Final Note: Scammers are on Medium and working so hard to create fake accounts, endorse the mother ship and comment on other people’s posts to use the opportunity to advertise their fake services with the promise of recovering your lost funds.
Here’s the thing…
The chances of recovering lost cryptocurrency are incredibly slim. This is just another level of scam that can happen to victims after the initial one, just another recovery scam, which I wrote about in one of my previous posts.
Please don’t fall for it.
