There is a boom in sales announcements and scams on social networks.
From emails to text messages, through social networks. The hunting ground of scammers is increasingly vast and there are more and more traps into which consumers risk falling when surfing the Internet, checking email or messages on their smartphone. In recent times, reports have registered a dizzying increase, thanks to the boom in e-commerce.
“We need to pay attention to the messages we receive, both via email and text message – warns Ivano Giacomelli, National Secretary of Codes –, even when brands of well-known companies are reported. Often, in fact, they are imitations. The company mentioned is unrelated to communication, it only serves to attract the consumer's attention and push him to click a link or provide personal data useful for triggering the scam. In these cases it is important not to stop at the appearance of the message, which may seem original due to the logo and graphics, and check for example the text, the date or the sender, because a typo or an error can help unmask the scam".
Not only emails and text messages, the hot front of online scams is now that of social networks. Used by many people, they are exploited by scammers for the ease and immediacy of communications.
“It all started with an advertisement for the sale of a product at a very advantageous price – Giacomelli declares –. At the beginning the seller is available, responds immediately to messages, but then, once the deal is concluded and the money is collected, he disappears and at that point the problems begin for the consumer. There are those who report having received a product of worse quality than the one ordered or totally different and then there are the deliveries that never took place. Before proceeding with the purchase, it is important to verify the reliability of the seller and in this sense looking for reviews is useful, just as it is important to use secure payment methods, which give the possibility of blocking the operation in case problems should arise”.
The Codici Association Help Desks are available to consumers who have been the victim of an online scam or who have problems purchasing a product online. In these cases, it is possible to report it to the email address segreteria.sportello@codici.org or at the telephone number 06.55.71.996.
Article published on 1 February 2022 - 12:45
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