Who's That Following You???

If you jump on the bandwagon--as I have--and set up a Twitter account, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that very quickly several people start following you.  Followers are good, but you should realize that not all of them are real.

Millions of fake Twitter accounts (up to 20 million by one estimate) are for sale, and millions of Twitter accounts are fraudulently used for the sole purpose of inflating the number of "followers" of a legitimate account.

Because having numerous followers is so valuable in increasing "standing" in the Twitterverse, many operators have sprung up that will generate numerous fake Twitter accounts for a client and then program those fake accounts to follow the client's legitimate Twitter account.

In another scam, these fake accounts can be made to re-tweet from legitimate accounts, also increasing prominence of the legit account.

Further still, illicit software is for sale that allows scammers to cause legitimate Twitter accounts to randomly follow thousands of other Twitter accounts.  And this is where you come in with your newly created Twitter account.  When you get that software-generated "follow" of your brand spanking new account, you are naturally inclined to accept the invitation to reciprocate by following the account that just followed you.  Bingo... the account that used a software program to follow you just got a legitimate follower in return!