Any YouTube experts on?

[Eagle7]

I'm sure this will be laughable to most of you, but I made a compliment to a YouTube video I was watching, and they replied "Telegram me" and asked me to direct message them, they had a fan gift for me. I have no idea how to do that. Are there any YouTubers on the forum who know what that is and can direct me to how to do that?

 

[695 to Emira]

Call me paranoid if you like, but it sounds like phishing to me.

 

[Eagle7]

I suppose it could be. That's why I'm asking. YouTube is a whole 'nother world which I'm not very familiar with. I've never joined instagram, facetime, or any of those generic platforms so I'm not really familiar with that world.

 

[virtualmacho]

I wouldn't bother. They've already seen your comments; they can copy and paste as they like.

 

[695 to Emira]

I also avoid almost all platforms. Got a letter from the Vodafone fraud team last week so I called them to see what personal data was out there that enabled somebody to open an account in my name. Thought I might need a new passport or drivers licence or whatever. Turns out all you need is a name, address and date of birth. Given the number of offers of a retirement flat I get through the post after turning 55, all that info is already out there on a mailing list. Or ten.

 

[Porter]

Telegram is an instant messaging application (similar to WhatsApp), theoretically secure but a healthy skepticism is warranted. It's very popular in Russia, less so in the US and western Europe.

FYI the most secure widely used instant messaging application is called Signal.


To your question - their request had nothing to do with Youtube. They were asking you to contact them using an offline method. Unless you have significant trust for the particular channel or account, I would avoid.

 

[Citizen]

Telegram is way less secure than WhatsApp

 

[haaaake]

It's a common phishing scam from a fake account. Ignore.

 

[Leonard]

Yup 100% scam ignore/block if instagram

 

[Porter]

Telegram is way less secure than WhatsApp

They are both insecure. Telegram has some shady protocol problems, and WhatsApp leaks all the interaction metadata to Meta/FB.

 

[Jonhklee]

Total scam.

 

[Eagle7]

Thank you one and all. I think I've only commented on maybe 6 videos, so I was quite surprised when about 30 minutes after I said I liked a video, I got that message.

I'm sure (or I at least hope) young people are more savvy about this sort of thing. It's their world now, but it seems more predatory than ever. When I was young, we of course were always told to watch out for strangers, but the level of predation today is incredible.