What are the most common frauds?: Undoubtedly, the Internet provides many advantages and opportunities. However, everything that glitters is not gold (except to people like Dmitry Rybolovlev) and that is because sometimes we can find unexpected situations, in which for example, we can end up being victims of online fraud.
What are the most common frauds?
Table of Contents
Characteristics such as anonymity or the ability to interact from anywhere in the world, make it an optimal environment to put different types of fraud into motion, some of which we quote below.
Online Purchases
Among all of the frauds that can be found online, frauds committed through online stores that turn out to be entirely different than what they seemed, are the most common problem when it comes to cheating through the network. The main characteristics of these type of pages are the following:
They offer products that are copies of originals.
They send products that have nothing to do with the one that was offered or which way it was requested.
They charge amounts greater than or greater than the number indicated during the purchase process.
They do not comply with the delivery terms that they offer on their websites.
They do not have a telephone, address, etc., offering only a contact form to which they never respond.
Phishing
It is the most used technique for the theft of personal information, access credentials to online services or banking information. Its operation is based on sending emails or other messages impersonating the identity of a known service or company for the victim to access a fraudulent page that pretends to be legitimate. The purpose is for the user to enter all types of information so that the cybercriminal can use it for their benefit.
False loans
The existence and use of social networks allow these cybercriminals, which supposedly offer money loans at low interest, to advertise in any profile and reach a large number of people through the advertising of their ads. You can also find them in forums, comments on articles or in emails.
They will use the desperation of the people to obtain a credit to try to cheat and get an economic return or to collect personal information from their victims.
False rents or sales of vehicles
They are scams based on offering rental properties with excellent services at prices that are outside the market, abnormally low as compared to the quality of the property, its location, its interior, etc. This symptom should be enough to put us on alert and suspect that it may be a scam.
This same case is also happening with cars. Well-equipped vehicles are offered on different sales pages at unusually low prices.
In both cases, the deception is usually similar: owners who are abroad, and who can not leave the country in which they reside because of the high cost that would come to carry out the sale or rental operation. They also claim that they will not return and therefore have no interest in continuing to reside or making use of the property in question, and that is why they rent or sell it.
Finding a partner online
In the vast majority of occasions, cybercriminals will use this type of deception to obtain, as in the previous frauds described, an economic benefit.
The main techniques of deception that they use are identity theft, the creation of false profiles in social networks, or the use of the well-known socialising online methods. Once the trust of the victim has been gained, they will request money transfers under any excuse. Photos and videos of sexual or compromising content that may have been exchanged are also used to squeeze the victim (sextortion) economically or to discredit them on the Internet.
