When it comes to the world of social media, there are hundreds, if not thousands of scams and scam artists going around, and have been since the very start of social media, but now, in 2022, one of the most well known scams can only be described as 'The Sugar Daddy Scam'.
I don't know what everyone's Instagram direct messages (DMs) look like, but mines is full of friends tagging me in photos, nail appointment schedules, the occasional MLM typical message, personal trainers encouraging me to join their team, and of course, sugar daddies wanting to pay me for only being their friend. Seems legit, right?
So I asked my Instagram, out of curiosity- was there supposed 'sugar daddies' in there DMs, at this current moment in time? According to my poll, completed by 32 people, a whopping 90% said that there was, which shows how large scale this scam has actually gotten. Please note, also, the small minority of people who answered no were all men.
Sometimes I do think to myself, how do people still fall for these? I get hundreds of these so called sugar daddies in my DMs, surely it cannot be that easy to find someone to pay you for nothing? But once actually interacting and playing them at their own game, they do a great job of making it sound very legit and real. Here is a quick insight into what my personal DM's look like-
These men, or women (it could be anyone behind that screen) take photos from anyone they can find, some will often just go to Instagram and find a friendly, often grey haired family orientated older man who has plenty of photos and simply just screenshot all their photos ands upload them as their own, it really is that easy. One thing I have noticed as many of them seem to go by the name Stephen, I don't really know why this is- maybe Stephen is a more friendly believable name, who knows but in my DMs, there is a fair share of Stephens.
One instant and easy way to detect if they are real or not is to reverse image search any of their photos using an online tool. This is super easy and all you do is screenshot their photo and upload it, and right away it comes up with all other places this photo shows up, often being the real social media accounts of these people. In this specific instance, I had someone going by the name 'Martins Rolland' in my DMs ( not a Stephen, What!!!). He sent me a message asking if i would like to be his sugar baby, and be paid $5000 a week, just to be his friend. Take a look at his Instagram account...
Looks familiar right? This person is using photos of Hugo Hammond, from Love Island. I highly doubt he is going to fool anyone with photos like that!
So how do these scams work? Basically what happens is they will first make it seem more believable and will play you along, saying that they 'aren't sure if you would be a reliable sugar baby' to make you think they are serious about paying them. Then they will ask for your PayPal email so they can send you money to prove they are legit. Giving someone your PayPal email is completely safe, as all someone can do is transfer you money- they can't take anything out with just your email. Once they have this, instead of just transferring the money straight to your account which is how PayPal works, they will send you a fake email from 'PayPal' saying you need to confirm the payment to go into your bank, I am not sure which happens from there as I of course didn't dare press the link, but from what I have seen from other people is this then prompts you to input your bank details by which then the scammer will have and will then be able to empty your bank account. This is what the fake phishing PayPal email looks like:
For younger people this scam is a killer, the scammers usually targets younger girls from the ages of 12-16 as they are the most prevalent and niave to these scams, these sort, and any sort of social media scams should really be taught in schools across the world to teens who are most likely to fall for these. These teen girls are just wanting to brag to their friends that they have a sugar daddy, and have thousands to spend on makeup and clothes- when in reality the exact opposite happens. Many also stalk college accounts to find and follow students in need of financial help and exploiting those left isolated and financially insecure from COVID–19.
Who are the people behind the scams, and why do they do it?
While nobody knows for certain who these people are or why they do it, if they work as part of a team in an office or if they work on their own, after confronting a sugar daddy in my personal DMs, I did get some sort of reply out if him, if that.
Although it is likely the scammer is only saying this as a double bluff and aims to make you feel bad enough you send them money, they will more than likely scam you if you even send them anything out of goodwill so definitely avoid this bluff at all costs. It ever will be clear who is behind these scams and it is almost impossible for police, or anyone to stop it from happening and find the people behind the scam as it is so easy to hide behind a social media account and just keep creating new accounts, anyone is capable of it.
How to put an end to these scams?
The only way to avoid people being scammed by these so called 'sugar daddies' is to raise awareness. Share everything you can to make others aware that this is a thing, and most importantly- block and report any suspected fake sugar daddies you come across so they can't go ahead and scam anyone else.
Loved this! Such a great read 💜👍🏽