Despite the countless benefits and opportunities the internet offers, online fraud has become a threat to every internet user.
Just as you struggle to make money and meet your financial goals, same way online scam artists are making effort to deceive and deprive people of their possessions.
Internet fraudsters or scammers are everywhere trying to trick people to give up their money either deliberately or otherwise. You need to understand how to spot them to avoid them.
Although there are software applications you can use to keep scammers away, the best tool for prevention is you. So, if you experience these five signals online, you’re probably dealing with a scammer.
1. An upfront payment
If you’re required to make an upfront payment before you get information about a product or make a part payment before you can be shown a sample of the product in any online business deal, you’ll most likely lose the money. Don’t send a dime!
This practice is common online and many people have fallen for it. You can see service offers like ‘Let’s show you the secret of making money’ or an online book that promises to tell you ‘one million ways to grow your business’. These sound good but once it becomes compulsory you make a part payment first, you’ve got to know that a scammer has come online.
2. You’re promised a quick route to wealth
Online scammers’ promises always sound good and tempting, but it takes one to be very careful and sceptical to ignore them.
The two examples above are the kind of offers you see online or receive in your emails. When you see how to make one million Naira in one month, then you’ve got to run.
3. You can’t figure out how the person making the offer benefits
In every business transaction, someone will always be a seller and the other will be a buyer. But if in the business offering you are the only who will get all the benefits of the deal or how the supposed business partner is going to make his profit is not completely clear to you, you have to be wary.
4. You’re being bombarded by jargon
Scammers often use jargons to confuse their targets. See, no matter how amazing the offer seems, if you don’t understand what it is all about, what it is and how it works, simply back off.
5. You are being pressured
Finally, don’t even bother to put your money on any offer that comes with pressure.
When you get messages like ‘this is the only one left and you may not get it again’, you need to wise up. If you also get a message about a product or service online telling you that you are lucky to see this now because it is the last they are offering the world, don’t buy the message and the product.