Stacey Wood, Molly Mason Jones Chair in Psychology and professor of psychology, spoke to the Times of San Diego about the recent increase in . This type of fraud leverages old social media “friendships” in an attempt to convince potential victims that they have received winnings from legitimate charitable organizations, such as the Earth Fund. Often these messages from social media “friends”鈥攚hose accounts are duplicated from real users, some of whom are deceased in actuality鈥攃ontain links that can be harmful for potential victims to click. Although Wood has not seen this particular type of fraud, she told the Times that she has witnessed similar multi-platform scams, which she calls “hybrids.”