Virtual thieves are lurking on “buy and sell” sites.
A. Latif Baraka: Heba Press
In recent years, a widespread wave of fraudulent operations has developed on the Internet, forcing victims to pay money to strangers in virtual space, without having any justification to prosecute them in court.
Today’s story is about a person who fell victim to this gang that creates fake pages specializing in “buying and selling” and displays low-priced products that attract browsers to these sites.
The victim was deceived by a person who sold him a product, “foodstuffs”, acquired in the southern provinces of the Kingdom, after contacting him, and the latter provided him via the “WhatsApp” application with a list including all the materials he needed.
The “scammer” responded to the victim’s requests via the instant messaging app’s audio technology, where she listened to the Quran being recited alongside him, which reassured the victim that he was dealing with a God-fearing person.
After the “scammer” captured the victim, he asked her, after accepting the “fake” buying and selling process, to pay the sum of 5,800 dirhams, which the latter complied with, since he agreed to send the sum to his own bank account in exchange for sending the order via delivery companies to the city of Agadir.
The victim, of course, had agreed to send the agreed amount through the bank branch, as well as send a copy of the deposit document via WhatsApp to the accused, and once done, the latter ignored the victim’s messages, before blocking her from accessing “WhatsApp.”
Eventually, it became clear to the victim that she had fallen for the scam, especially since the item the “scammer” was offering her turned out to be from photos previously posted on some sites, confirming that he hadn’t gotten it in the first place.
Faced with this growing situation of fraud and scams, citizens should be careful not to communicate with unidentified people through Facebook buying and selling groups in order to avoid falling into their traps, while exercising caution and avoiding sending their money to those they do not know well.
