Percentage of cyber crime is increasing everyday. Millions of internet users are falling and loosing their hard earned money to online fraudsters, how can this be stopped? what can you do to avoid scammers? In this article, how to easily recognize scammers, how to avoid them, some of their basic baits and how they operates will be discussed.

When talking about “internet fraud”, these are two common words, almost all internet users know what the word “scam” or “fraud” means. when people loses their money to fraudsters, they usually give out the scammers contact details to the public, they will warn others to beware of those scammers. However, instead of doing the best you can do after being scammed, why not try and do the best you can to make sure you don’t fall victim? without too much talk, let’s dive in.

How To Recognize Online Fraudsters Easily:


Fraudsters usually operates on social media, the most easiest to use social media is Facebook, this makes it easy for them to create a fake account, with a fake name and a fake profile picture [posing as a beautiful white woman or man].


In order to recognize a fraudster on social media, you should check for his profile details, a fraudster might not use a fake account, which means the scammer is using his or her own name, so when you want to transact with someone online, you are required to do some things for a smooth transaction.

1. When you want to buy something online, and you find a seller, make sure you check his account details, make sure he or she had been using the account for at least 6 months.

2. Check for the seller’s previous record, if the seller has no previous record of what he or she wants to sell, then you’ve got to be careful.

3. Search for the seller’s name on search engine like Google, yahoo and Bing, when searching for the seller’s name make sure you add fraud related keyword to his or her name, maybe you can find criminal records of the seller.

4. Don’t transact with a strange person, when you wants to transact business online, deal with a popular and legit person, the person must be someone that many people have done lots of deals with.

5. If you don’t trust the seller, you can ask the seller to use escrow. Involving escrow means involving a third party, the third party must be someone you and the seller trusted, the seller will release what he wants to sell to the third party, you will pay the seller, then the third party will release your product to you.

6. You can ask the seller to tag you in a random post asking people to vouch for him if he’s legit or not. In this case, you should take note of the people vouching for him, make sure their are some of them you know well, don’t forget to find out if those people have good character and criminal records free.

7. Make sure the person you are dealing with has an high quality image as profile picture, do not transact business with someone with no pictures of his own.

8. Stay off from someone that keeps pestering you to come and pay any amount for a service you want from him, this usually happens when you don’t have the amount the seller want, the seller might start telling you to pay any amount you have and pay the rest later. Stay off from those kind of people.

9. Stay away from people offering high quality products for cheaper price, e.g: when someone told you to come and pay N1k for ,com domain name and hosting

10. If you are to pay into the seller’s bank account, make sure the account name and the seller’s name is the same, if not, you’ve got to be careful. Be careful when dealing with sellers with nicknames.

The above are tips on how to recognize a fraudster, how to avoid them and how they operates. However, let’s discuss some of their basic baits and how they implement it.

1. Pretending to be a custom officer: this is one of the most common tricks scammers are using, they will list exotic cars for fake auction with small amount of money, they might tell you to come and buy mercedez Gwagon for N1 million, in this case their victims will be so much interested, they will start with their clients, after collecting the agreed sum of money, they will disappear without leaving traces.

2. Fake BVN messages: You might have been receiving this kind of messages, they will state it out in the message that your account, your ATM MasterCard and your BVN has been blocked by CBN, you should call some numbers to re-activate. Upon calling the numbers, they will start asking nasty questions like; which bank are you using? call out the sixteen digits numbers in front of your ATM card, call out the three digit numbers at the back of your ATM card, call out the expiry month and year of your card, what is the name on your card?

After giving them all this, they will start using your cards for online transactions, buying goods and products online until they empty your account, if you call the numbers you called before, the replies you will be getting is that the numbers does not exist or switched off.

3. Posing As Wealthy Man or Woman: This is another common trick used by fraudsters, they will be sharing fake achievements on their social media account, claiming what they are not, you will want them to help you, after seeking for help, they will ask for some amount of money, after paying them, they will disappear.

Conclusion: The above are tricks they use, they usually waits for their clients to fall into their traps, however, with the above, you should know how to deal safely online, how to avoid scammers, how to recognize them before falling into their trap. If you have been scammed before, but the trick the scammer used is not listed here, please let us know through your comment, your contributions will be highly appreciated. Keep Rocking!!

source: https://www.gurusblend.com/2017/11/23/recognize-online-fraudsters-easily/

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