Police urged the public to be on the lookout for social-media scams after a Bermuda charity warned of fake impersonators online.

OutBermuda recently told its Instagram followers that it found out about an account impersonating the organisation as it prepared for this week’s Pride festivities.

Intended victims were reportedly invited by the fake account to sign up for a phoney “free giveaway”.

The charity posted: “Please report them right away! Do not share your personal info with this account.”

A police spokeswoman said the public should be wary of scams that seek to obtain money, personal information and banking details.

"We have been made aware that fake social-media accounts continue to be used as a tool to gain access to your personal information, social-media passwords and banking or credit card information,“ the spokeswoman said.

She explained that several methods could be used to help spot scammer accounts, noting that many fake profiles were recently created and had only posted a few images.

They could have few friends and followers, ask to chat off-site and their messages include errors.

Fake accounts often also have additional characters in their profile name.

In the case of the OutBermuda phoney Instagram, users noticed that the profile name included an underscore while the charity’s actual account does not.

The police spokeswoman added: “If you are unsure about a social-media profile, or the offer seems too good to be true, do not engage with the user and immediately block the profile.”