{"id":8479,"date":"2021-07-02T09:31:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T08:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=8479"},"modified":"2021-07-02T09:31:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T08:31:32","slug":"online-fraud-ways-to-spot-fake-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/online-fraud-ways-to-spot-fake-websites\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Fraud: Ways to Spot Fake Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Digital evolution and  technological advancement has without doubt  caused changes in almost all aspects of human endeavor. While these changes have contributed immensely to both human and social development, it has also ushered in an era of fraudulent activities online, what Nigerians widely regard as \u201cYahoo Yahoo\u201d or \u201c419\u201d in the general sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These online fraud, has been mostly associated with Investment scams<\/a>, a type of online fraud that offers unsuspecting members of the society juicy investment deals only to swindle their stakes at the long run and financial identity theft, is a type of online fradulent theft where a criminal steals personal or financial information from a victim without their knowledge in order to commit financial fraud or other crimes. According to a <\/a>report by, a type that is carried out by scammers to access a personal financial details of persons and use it in turn to steal their bank savings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These heralding issues and the possible risks online users are prone to, led the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to warn and discourage people against paying attention to messages and calls that demands access to their financial details or offers good investment deals. According to a report by <\/a>\u00a0, Datarepotal, a database for global internet use, mobile devices and apps, social media, and e-commerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigeria has over 104.4 million internet users as of January 2021 and\u00a0 this has even increased between 2020 and 2021 with over 19 million new users added. This enormous growth of internet users in the country suggests a wider reach for scammers, a concern that led the Central Bank of Nigeria<\/a>\u00a0 to warn members of the public against paying attention to messages and claims that appear questionable or juicy to be true. This reality also makes it important for members of the public to know some of these fraudulent schemes are perpetuated, especially through fake websites and enticing links.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fake websites: a strategy for online con-artists<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Fake websites have become serious threats to online security. While  some of these websites will tempt you to provide sensitive information to steal your identity, others simply do that when you merely click the link that is usually the bait. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more, according to new data <\/a>by the American Federal Trade Commision, the use of social media by online fraudsters to get potential victims to click to their fake websites is on the rise. Scams starting on social media proliferated in early 2020 and are now a major issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus as social media users increase by the day, so also is the rise of its usage by fraudsters to bait users into their websites using fake generated links. These links are sometimes attached to fancy ads or enticing  offers to market to convince unsuspecting users into falling victims of these ruse scams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A typical example of an online fraud shared as a Whatsapp message to bait users<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some scammers even hide behind phony profiles on social media to share false testimonies to completely unfounded schemes just to convince other users. They can hack an account or join a virtual community you trust to encourage you to trust them. Nonetheless, there are multiple types of these online fraud and scams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Types of online Scams<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n