A new scam appears to be making the rounds on Sri Lankan social media, this time in the form of WhaleBoost, a seemingly easy money-making scheme. Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has upended many Sri Lankans’ lives and as a result, widespread scams have begun taking a turn for the worst over the past few months. WhaleBoost looks to be one of the latest iterations to take place at scale.
Touted as a notable e-commerce venture, WhaleBoost supposedly aimed to help the average person earn a side income with minimal effort. It’s a similar script from countless Ponzi schemes and other scams. As such, it didn’t take much to dispute the boisterous claims.
Youtuber ManiYa briefly dissected WhaleBoost and shed light on the questionable nature of the operation. For starters, the two domains that WhaleBoost utilizes for its “e-commerce venture” are barely two months old. While that in itself doesn’t necessarily allude to any malintent, the websites’ dubious claims raise enough red flags.
Then there’s the marketing of it all. A large part of the reason why many Sri Lankans have found familiarity with the name is due to influencers and content creators pushing paid campaigns on WhaleBoost. ManiYa’s video also points to how WhaleBoost looks to sign up influencers onboard. In one of the emails, a team member shared a pitchdeck that appears to be nothing more than random stock photos slapped on a few slides to promote a non-existent business. Also,…
