When you check whether an online seller looks legit, what do you look at? Follower count. Comments. Reviews. Maybe a familiar face endorsing the page. Recent Sri Lankan cases show every one of those signals being manufactured at industrial scale — which is worth understanding before your next purchase.
Follower counts: Rs. 2,000 buys you 20,000
In late 2025, the CID's Cyber Crimes Division arrested a man who built fake Facebook pages using stolen photos of women, grew them to 10,000–20,000 followers each, and sold them — for between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 2,000 a page. More than ten pages were trafficked this way, with ownership transferred by simply changing the account email.
Read that again: a ready-made audience of twenty thousand, the single strongest "this page is real" signal most shoppers check, costs less than a decent lunch.
Famous faces: rented without permission
In early 2025, researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa documented paid Facebook ads impersonating well-known Sri Lankan journalists to promote a fake investment platform — complete with fabricated bank statements, fake testimonial comments using local names, and a countdown deadline for "free registration". When the impersonated journalist reported it, Meta initially ruled the ad didn't violate its standards. The page came down only after direct contacts intervened.
The lesson isn't about investment scams specifically. It's that a paid, "verified-looking" ad with a familiar face and glowing local comments can be 100% counterfeit — and the platform may be slow to act even when told.
Social proof: screenshots are free to fake
An analysis of a "TikTok Shop" task scam targeting Sri Lankans found victims herded into Telegram channels where fabricated bank-transfer screenshots scrolled past continuously — manufactured social proof, in Sinhala and Tamil, to make payouts look routine. Deposits started at Rs. 300–500 and escalated; individual losses ran from Rs. 10,000 to over Rs. 200,000. The fake platform even displayed fake balances and fake "withdrawal complete" messages.
Edited payment screenshots appear on the selling side too — it's one of the ten fraud patterns ikman warns about in its safety guide for Sri Lanka's biggest marketplace.
So what can you trust?
Signals that cost the scammer nothing — followers, comments, screenshots, ad polish, urgency — are worth nothing. The signals that still mean something are the ones that cost effort or create accountability:
- History you can verify: years of consistent posts, messy real-customer interactions, the same products restocked over time
- Reachability: a phone number that answers, a name, a pickup address
- Independent voices: real complaints and unboxings posted by strangers in groups the seller doesn't control
- Willingness to be accountable: a seller who agrees to a live photo of your exact item — or better, to a payment arrangement where they only get paid after you receive the goods
That last one is the strongest, because it's the one a scammer cannot fake. A fraudster can buy 20,000 followers for Rs. 2,000, but they can't accept a payment that only releases on delivery — there'd be nothing to steal.
That's the test TrustPay builds into every purchase: sellers verify their identity within 24 hours, your money is held in the middle, and it moves only when you confirm the order arrived as described. Ask a seller to use it. Their answer tells you what twenty thousand followers can't. See how it works.