The festive season is a time where many people are in search for money for festive activities. This is also a time where some receive their 13th cheque giving them extra money than they usually have during the year.
This is sadly a time where scammers are also hard at work creating many scams on and offline to rob people of their hard-earned cash.
While there may be many scams created everyday online, we will be touching on a few shared by retirement and investment house Sanlam.
Hacked email scams
This scam occurs when fraudsters manage to crack the passcode to your emails. Discovering that your email has been hacked can be very detrimental as emails often store valuable information many of our valuable assets. Once they’ve cracked their code into your emails, scammers may also be able to request passcode changes as those are usually emailed for verification.
Fake Investment Schemes Scam
For this scam fraudsters have mostly use Facebook, WhatsApp or SMS. Sanlam states that scams such as this are more conversational which in turn creates trust which may lead to easily accepting the offers. It is thus important to always verify every message received.
Vault Account Scam
Sanlam states that this scam mostly affects the elderly, preforming this scam, fraudsters contact the victim, pretending to be from the fraud department of their bank. They inform the victim they’ve detected fraudulent activity on the victim’s bank account coming up with a suggestion for them to transfers their money from their bank account to a “Vault Account for safekeeping, while the bank investigates the attempted fraud.”
Online marketplace
Scammers create sites and social media accounts pretending to be selling goods to online buyers. This can range from hair, clothes, furniture and many other things. After payment the goods never get delivered, they often block the mode of communication, adds online database of internet and TV providers in USA, Broadband Search.
Social Media
Hacking social media and WhatsApp hacked is very common these days. This scam makes scammers quick money as they are able to ask for money from close friends and family the victim’s number or social media accounts.
Also see: Scams women should be aware of when buying a car
