Seeing Through Scams

in Hive Learnerslast year

The advent of technological advancement has brought about two sides of a coin. Cybercrime is one of the failings of technology and the level at which it is perpetrated in the present day is constantly on the rise. It is now more like nowhere is safe in the online space anymore. Although this concept is deeper than it seems, we have the normal online space we all know and feel on a daily basis, while the dark web also exists. But that is not the topic for today.


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Lately, scams especially through social media are getting more common and closer to the average human, even in my country. Virtually everyone must have heard (maybe not encountered one directly). I have had a fair share of the information regarding successful (or not) scams. But funny enough, I have not been a victim of scams. This could be partly due to the fact that I was close to older people while growing up and I had known scams exist in different fashion. So, I have been able to identify and blow the cover of some scams myself. I will highlight how I have been able to do that shortly.

One common method by which scams are perpetrated is through using unscrupulous links. Some would not have the '.com' or any known extension. However, by virtue of experience, I can tell if one is obviously what is or not. Now, one may tend to mismatch this with those ones that are gotten through a link shortener platform like bit.ly, tinyURLetc.

Also, I do engage those who send these kinds of links to confirm if what they are saying is through or not. Some come with the view of being an agent for a federal government scheme, a recruiter, an affiliate marketer etc. On chatting with them and asking a few questions, I could infer the true nature of what they proclaim. Another thing is that they all tend to ask for money at the end of it all, no matter how they paint their sugar-coated gospel. I ask as many more questions as possible till they block me themselves. I do not need even to tell them that they are scammers.

All the above sounds easier said than done, right? However, I learned how to sniff out these unscrupulous activities through a form of experience. When I see a link that already looks somehow, I copy first and paste it to any other browser apart from Chrome which is my regular go-to app instead of clicking directly because you never can tell what lies in the backend. So, I scout around the site for anything that will give them away. Sometimes, you would be instructed to share the (scam) information with other groups and all, to propagate the falsehood.

These and many more are ways to see through any (social media) scams.


Mind you, I don't do this on any other platform aside from my social media apps. I do not try it when I am on Hive.

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 last year  

@tipu curate

 last year  

My oga..🙌🤲🙇

 last year  

You're welcome

Thanks for the sharing

 last year  

🙌🙇 thanks

 last year  

I employ almost same technique as you. I don't needs to confront them. I just play along until they get tired of talking and realize that they're making a mess of themselves

 last year (edited) 

Normally, confronting them will only make them defensive. So like you said, I play along. Sometimes, I act like I'm desperate for a get-rich-quick thingy.😅
Thanks for your input @cheeamaka

 last year  

I must commend your strategy on tackling fraudsters. It was very difficult for me to identify them at the initial but latter I discovered their gimmick. Thanks for sharing again and I look forward to reading more of your post.

 last year  

Some people learn from direct experience after being a victim though. It's good you have gotten their scope. Thank you!

 last year  

Yes so

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 last year  

Thanks for sharing your strategy for identifying fraudulent links!

 last year (edited) 

🙌🙌 I'm glad you got some value, @elderdark.

Online scamming are just too rampant these days. One just have to very careful of the the type of links to click and information we share online.

You seems to know when one is trying to sniff around your information, and you are taking a good measure against them.

Be safe out there. !luv

 last year  

As they are getting more and more rampant, so is our responsibility to become more vigilant.
To an extent, I can recognise them from afar, and I'll engage them to confirm but they are not all far fetched from the main goal of getting money.