Small businesses, podcast scammers are coming for you

Small business owners, influencers and creators, fraudsters are targeting you!

There is a scam specifically designed to steal your business information and ultimately your finances. It starts with what would appear to be your big break, your moment to shine.

An email arrives from a producer of a hugely successful podcast and they know all about your creation, you’re getting compliments left, right and centre, great product, amazing sell, incredible style, who wouldn’t want to hear that? You’re invited to be their guest, you’re even offered money to show up on the podcast.

Prior to the confirmed dates a quick tech check is required as standard, and on that zoom call the tech guy tells you to open your meta business suite, in order to connect your accounts, you are requested to screen share, click on a link and that one click transfers full administration access of your meta accounts to a scammer and then you are locked out, such as what happened to these small business owners.

Followers, monetisation, brand deals all gone.

How do you protect yourself:

• Real podcast producers will not require access to your meta business suite to stream.

• Major podcast producers do not operate from Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo. They will be traceable; you will be able to confirm who they are and that they work for a specific production company.

• Never click on any links in a zoom chat from someone you don’t know.