The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: How To Spot & Avoid Get-Rich-Quick Schemes

Today, I’m talking about how social media has changed get-rich-quick schemes, and what to watch out for online.

One of the problems with social media that makes things a lot easier for scammers is that there is often so much about you available online, and scammers can friend and follow you, and see your posts, see who you’re friends with, and learn a lot about you online.  Combine that with the fact that many people these days are comfortable being friends with or being connected with people they don’t know in real life. 

This scammer who appears to be your online friend, then will message you and say something like, hey, I helped your neighbor Ellen make money, and it sounds legit because after all they know Ellen. But all they saw was that you posted a picture with Ellen last summer at your neighborhood block party, and they don’t actually know her. 

The most common types of scam online are online shopping deals and product giveaways. Someone messages you and says, we want to send you $100 of free (whatever) or you’ve been selected for this free gift card, or an amazing free trip or something along those lines.

But the catch is that you just need to pay $20 for shipping or pay some fee to claim your prize. The fee is often minimal, so you think that’s a pretty good deal…and that’s how they get you. You hand over your $20 and your freebie never arrives and you never hear from them again. 

Another common scheme is cash flipping. I learned about this on a WSJ podcast late last year. The scammer says something like: “I can help you make quick cash. I do this for a lot of people. All you have to do is send me $150, and I can just flip that into $1,500." Sometimes people will say that they have some special key to investing money really quickly, that they're an expert in it. No one else knows how to do it. And they'll tell you, "I'm so good at this that I'm going to get even more money than $1,500 after I flip the 150 you give me, but I'll give you $1,500 back." So they make it sound like it's a good deal for everyone involved, but it's not. They just want that $150 from you.

These are just a couple of examples of how social media has changed the landscape, and tomorrow I’ll talk about some of the tell-tale signs that the great opportunity you’ve just stumbled upon is a get-rich-quick scheme that you should avoid.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance