Twitter Scam Incidents Growing

Twitter is good fun for millions -- and a commercial opportunity akin to email for people who want to market their products and services, including, of course, Twitter spammers.
Since some people eventually accumulate many thousands of followers, they have a ready audience for whatever they're trying to sell -- whether it's an opinion or a birdhouse. (Some celebrities and politicians have over a million followers.)
Hardly surprising then that the mushrooming growth of this social networking site has given birth to a number of Twitter scams.

Here are the main types of Twitter scams:

1. "Easy-money, work-from-home" schemes

With this Twitter scam, firms claim they can show you how you can make money by promoting other people's products to them.
They charge a modest sign-up fee, typically a couple of dollars, but when you pay (with your credit card) you're also signing up for a recurring monthly membership fee of around $40 for ongoing tips.
Now, there are many legitimate membership sites that charge recurring monthly fees. However, what makes these Twitter scams is that the membership explanation is either completely hidden or non-existent -- and it's almost impossible to cancel and get your money back.
Needless to say, the only people making money from this scheme is the Twitter scam artist.
For more on phony work-from-home schemes, check out these articles:
Top 10 Work At Home and Home Based Business Scams
Work At Home Jobs: How to Avoid Getting Scammed

2. Promises of thousands of instant followers

Whether you want lots of followers out of personal vanity or to plug misguidedly into the Twitter scam outlined above, you might be tempted to sign up for a service that offers to deliver thousands of followers literally overnight.
They claim to be able to do this by identifying other Twitter users who automatically follow anyone who follows them.
Some even claim they have built up databases of people according to their interests, so you can be sure you are targeting the right people with your "tweets."
Well, they may or may not be able to do all of these things but they're really no different from people who sell email addresses to spammers.
They charge for the service, of course, and if you buy, you could end up being accused of trying to send Twitter spam and be banned from Twitter.

3. The Twitter phishing scam

Well, what did you expect? Anyplace where there's a chance of netting someone's personal details is a haven for phishing -- the technique of fooling people into disclosing things like passwords, Social Security numbers and other confidential information.
Twitter phishing scammers have a number of different tricks for doing this but they mostly boil down to the same fatal step -- getting you to click a link that takes you to what appears to be a Twitter sign-on page where you give them your password.
Once they have that, they can pretend they're you and use your account for evil purposes -- like spreading more Twitter spam or infecting other people's computers.
One sneaky Twitter scammer invited followers to make up a username using their answers to three common sign-on secret questions, "just for fun."
For example, your first pet's name, your mother's maiden name and your first car, might yield: TrixieDoeTBird.
Scores of people responded, giving this Twitter scammer a possible route to hacking into their various online accounts by answering their secret question to get a new password!
Read more about phishing in this Scambusters article: Phishing Scams: How You Can Protect Yourself.

4. Spreading viruses and spyware

This Twitter scam is in full swing, using tempting messages like "Just saw this photo of you" followed by a link that, when you click it, takes you to a site that uploads malware onto your computer.
Sometimes, by exploiting the phishing technique outlined above, the message may seem to come from one of your regular followers, perhaps even a friend or relative. In reality, their Twitter account has been hijacked.
There are some clever variations of this Twitter scam. For instance, one site offered a program that, when installed, supposedly would tell you who had been checking out your Twitter profile.
It did nothing of the sort. Instead, it installed spyware.

5. Other money-making Twitter scams

Twitter scammers have developed lots more cunning ideas that try to fool you into parting with your hard-earned cash, some of them variations of scams we've seen many times before in other guises.
For instance, you may get a message from someone you know claiming to be in trouble and asking you to wire cash. In fact, their Twitter account has been hijacked by a scammer.
Or, you may have been tweeting about a product you want to buy, when you get a "direct-message" tweet from someone who claims to work for the manufacturer or retailer and offers to sell you one at a bargain price. Of course, they want your credit card number.
Then there's the tweet that tells you you've won a cell phone. You just have to send them your existing number so it can be transferred to the new device. In fact, you're signing up for a monthly astrology service charged to your phone account.
By the time you read this, some other Twitter scam merchant will probably have come up with another ruse to try to relieve you of information or money.