Yahoo Finance Influencer shares 'frightening' moment she realized she was being scammed: 'I don't want to even think about what they would have done'
Twitch streamer Pokimane, who is the most followed woman on the platform, recently shared on Twitter and TikTok that she was almost scammed after falling for an email she thought was from a trusted brand.
Pokimane — whose legal name is Imane Anys — claimed someone pretending to be from the lingerie and loungewear company Neiwai reached out to her over email asking if she wanted some free items. Pokimane had mentioned the brand in a recent video because she is a fan of their underwear.
“Sometimes when you order from a company and you talk about them, since they have your email from the order that you made, they’ll email you,” Pokimane explained in her video. “They asked me if I wanted some PR which, if you use the stuff, why not, right?”
The scammer allegedly sent Pokimane a PowerPoint of the brand’s “new collection” and asked for the streamer’s measurements and address so she could receive some custom bras.
A few days later, Pokimane said she was getting ready to take her measurements to reply to the email when she noticed that the instructions wanted her to send photos.
“I realized that they weren’t showing me how to take my measurements, they were asking me to put tape measure around me and send them a photo of my bare chest,” she said.
Pokimane alleged that someone had made a fake email that was formatted to be similar to what the company would use and had even forwarded fake emails from a fake boss to pretend that it was a legitimate company email address.
“The amount of effort they put in was both comical and frightening,” she said. “I don’t want to even think about what they would have done if I’d actually sent them anything.”
Pokimane added that this is why influencers should always send things to a P.O. box rather than giving out their actual address to brands.
“Please take this as a cautionary tale,” she concluded.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported that consumers lost more than $5.8 billion to fraud in 2021. Phishing, which is the practice of sending an email claiming to be from a reputable company in order to trick people into revealing personal information, is a top security concern and the number of phishing attacks has nearly doubled since 2020.
“This is a very real look at how phishing attempts get more convincing over time,” one commenter pointed out. “Great job spotting it and thanks for sharing!”
The post Twitch influencer Pokimane shares ‘frightening’ moment she realized she was being scammed appeared first on In The Know.
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