In a situation of economic uncertainty like the current one, there are many cybercounts who try to take advantage of, through social networks, fast and easy gains making some supposedly safe investment.
You have to be very careful with this type of messages, which can take you to lose important amounts of money. Generally, they offer “exclusive”, special, for a limited period of time, and press the victim to make an investment that turns out to be a fraud.
Goal points out that these types of scams are increasingly frequent. The company acknowledges that, since the beginning of 2024, it has detected and deactivated more than seven million accounts associated with scam centers located in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines.
Tips to recognize the most common investment and payment scams on the Internet
In addition to the rapid action by the company, it is necessary to raise awareness of users so that they do not become the perfect target of the scams on the Internet. In this sense, Meta has shared practical tips to recognize the most common investment and payment scams on the Internet.
-He investor states: These types of scams usually press the user to make an online payment, and usually come from companies or unknown persons that offer financing services. According to goal, it is necessary to extreme caution with cryptocurrency investment advisors offered to recover lost funds in previous scams.
-Prepayment: These types of scams can be given on sale platforms that are legitimate, such as Facebook Marketplace, where the scammer may have created a totally normal profile.
It distrusts whether, after buying the item, it asks you to make the payment before sending or delivery of the item purchased. It is possible that, once the payment is received, the scammer stops answering the messages and does not send the article.
It is not the only possible scam in this type of platforms, Wallapop or Vinned type, where you always have to distrust if the seller requests the transaction by other means of payment outside the platform, or if he asks to communicate via email or whatsapp with the buyer.
-Pay in excess and reimbursement request: In this type of situation, the scammer is the buyer. He points out, using a false receipt, which has paid more for the article he has acquired, and requests a partial refund to the seller. Upon receiving it, he usually reverts his original payment, and stays with both.
Meta tools against fraud
To prevent these types of situations, goal makes available to Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp users, a series of tools that aim to fight against online fraud.
For example, on Facebook Messenger warnings are shown when requested to the payment in advance of an article or there are evidence of suspicious activities.
In the same way, both in this tool and on Instagram, facial recognition technology is used, with check -up verification in video, to help detect and prevent scams that use celebrities as bait, and allow a faster identity verification for the recovery of accounts.
On the other hand, Meta recommends users to review their privacy periodically on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In this sense, he advises selecting who can contact you, who can see your personal information, who can know if you are online or who can see your profile and activity photo. This will avoid receiving contacts from people you don’t know and could be scammers.
