Science&Tech Bank acts against Tikkie accounts on Instagram Posted on July 1, 2019 8 min read Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ 'Send me a tikkie for cheese', 'Give me a frikandel bread roll' and 'Send me a tikkie for Unicef': ABN Amro is busy getting around a hundred accounts offline with this kind of message on Instagram via payment app Tikkie asking for money. The account holders want money for a good cause, or just for themselves. It is often not clear who is behind the accounts. Young people should be careful with this type of payment request on Instagram, warns ABN Amro, the bank behind the payment app. With Tikkie, users can transfer money via a payment link. That link can be sent to a 06 number, but can also be shared via social media. Tikkie is popular in the Netherlands. Around 5 million people have the app and Tikkie pays 200,000 times a day. So young Instagram users now respond to this in a handy way. Often these accounts use the Tikkie logo as a profile photo and ask for money from other users, for very different things. From cheese to plastic surgery and from money for a good cause to a banana. They usually receive small donations ranging from a cent to a few euros. Wouter (16) and Sacha (13) from Tikkie voor Kaas want to raise money for, indeed, cheese. "I saw that everyone was doing it and I still had an old extra account that I did not use anymore," says Wouter. Real money with the Tikkie account is not the intention, according to the boys it is more a joke. They have collected "one very nice cent" so far. Mustafa (15) from Tikkie for iPhonex has also created the account as a joke. "And suddenly I saw a lot of people donating. I had seen it with others, so I thought: let me just try it," he says. Mustafa has now received more than 12 euros and donations are still coming in. Some donors 'tap' one cent, others ten cents or even three euros. Copy behavior Jarno Duursma, trend watcher digital technology, explains that those Tikkie accounts were probably caused by copying behavior. "Someone started it. Those young people see it in someone else's mind and think: wow, that's a smart idea! It's a shame I didn't think of it myself. And then they also create such an account." ABN Amro is not happy with the trend and is trying to tackle the accounts. "We are in contact with Facebook, the owner of Instagram, to see how we can solve it," says a spokesperson. "We ensure that these types of accounts go offline, and also Facebook and Instagram try to get them out of the air." Around fifty of the more than one hundred 'Tikkie accounts' are now offline. But according to the bank, it is still quite complicated to determine which accounts are allowed and which are not. "For example, abusing the Tikkie logo is not allowed, so we get those accounts offline," a spokesperson explains. But collecting money through your own account, for example because you are saving for a new phone or a trip to America, you can and can just do that. "Pretty innocent," but watch out Earlier it turned out that fraudsters are abusing the Tikkie app, but according to Duursma this trend is fairly innocent. "Often it's only a small amount," he says. And because the target group of these Tikkie beggars is very young, criminals don't care much about their bank details. "Young people often do not have much money, so a thirteen-year-old bank account is not interesting for criminals." According to Duursma, it is possible that those accounts or followers of those accounts commit identity fraud with your data. Many Tikkie accounts state from whom they have received a Tikkie, or they even post a screenshot of the name and account number of that donor. And criminals could use that data. There is another danger, he says. "It's easy to link another website to such a link. Then you think you're on the Tikkie website, but that's not the case. And if you really want to get angry, you can go to young people who click link install software that for example takes over webcams. "
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