• There is a familiar pattern to how people get conned online. Beware to avoid the trap
Image: FILE
It’s happened once again. It never really goes away. Each time, it takes a new look and Kenyans in their thousands get seduced by it. There is now weeping and gnashing of teeth as Kenyans count huge losses.
Amazon Web Worker (AWW) has vanished with vast sums of money from Kenyans hoping for quick profits. The perpetrators of AWW did their homework: they took the name Amazon, the US tech giant famous for online shopping.
AWW promised online jobs. They offered very attractive interest rates on cash deposits. AWW encouraged members to bring their friends with promises of getting a share of the recruits' joining fees.
Last August, the Central Bank of Kenya warned that global online networking companies, pyramid schemes and forex traders would take advantage of Covid-19 economic difficulties to exploit Kenyans. Seems the warning was lost on many.
There is not much data on how much Kenyans are losing to online fraudsters, but the global figure was estimated at 36 billion Euros (Sh4.6 trillion) in 2019, according to the Dutch-based E-commerce Foundation.
How to protect yourself from online scammers:
- 1. Do your research on investment opportunities.
- 2. If it's too good to be true, it's probably a scam. Nobody's going to pay you to click on websites. 30 per cent interest on deposits is not realistic.
- 3. Avoid schemes that require you to recruit others to make money.
- 4. Check your social media privacy settings to limit what you share publicly.
- 5. Don't send money to people you have never met.
This story first appeared on the digital magazine Star Sasa, accessible on Sundays for Sh10 by dialling *550*3#
Edited by T Jalio