Behind the scenes of the social networking scam business that exploits the “information poor.

In these days of chaotic and untrue information, the media literacy of recipients is being questioned, and social networking services are exploiting the “weak of heart” (an abbreviation of “weak information,” referring to those who cannot take in and use information). Businesses that exploit the “weak-minded” (people who cannot take in and use information) are constantly being created on social networking sites.

Internet-based scams are not new, but the reasons for their acceleration can be attributed to the fact that the Internet and SNS have become much more familiar to the general public and the “population of suckers” has expanded, and “money can be transferred easily via the Internet.

As evidence, the Metropolitan Police Department announced in March 2012 that the number of victims of “SNS-type investment scams,” in which people are defrauded of money for investment purposes mainly through SNS, and “romance scams,” in which people are defrauded of money by making them fall in love, was on the rise last year, with the total amount of damage amounting to 45.52 billion yen. The amount of damage was as much as 45.52 billion yen last year.

This amount is more than the 44.12 billion yen in damage from special scams, including “oleore scams,” which used to account for the majority of the total.

Among the many social networking scams, we would like to introduce three new scams that are gaining popularity.

Why “Echo Photographs” Sell on Mercari

She told me that she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child and took an ultrasound photo of the little baby in her fourth week of pregnancy and put it up for sale on Mercari. At the time, I could not understand why echo photos would sell, but the reason became clear later.

There are people on social networking services known as “girls with a secret identity” who post naked photos of themselves or photos of themselves being fucked in order to gain support from men.

Of course, there are cases where echo photos are purchased as a pretext for pressuring a man in a relationship into marriage, as has been the practice for a long time. But nowadays, “to pressure a man into marriage” is not something that is a bit sympathetic.

If a girl who has been having relationships with an unspecified number of men on SNS posts a fake pregnancy test and an echo photo on SNS, saying, “I’m pregnant,” “I don’t know what to do…,” her male followers will instantly ask, “Are you all right? I’ll listen to what you have to say” and “DM me if you have a hard time. They take advantage of this.

For men who are not involved in a relationship, they will cleverly solicit support by saying things like, “I can’t talk to anyone about this, so I’m glad you listened to me,” or “I just need a little help with money.

Whether they are pregnant or not, they can raise tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in no time. What if they find out? The relationship is only on social networking sites, where they don’t even know each other’s identities. It is impossible to chase them in real life, so all they have to do is run away.

Incidentally, there is an internet slang term for male users who frequently reply to certain female users’ posts on X (formerly Twitter) and other social networking services: “penis knights. These men, who have lost their ability to make calm judgments, are easy prey for these women and are an important source of income.