It is for this reason that it is important for the population to be alert.

The most common scams are the theft of bank account passwords and online product sales that do not materialize.

Rental scams

Unfortunately, these types of scams can be carried out by anyone. Therefore, if you are looking for a house you should be cautious.

 Generally, the ads offer a house with:

• Centrally located, spacious and well lit
• Several rooms, high and exterior
• Recent renovations and good furniture
• Fantastic photographs.
• Priced well below market

When contacting the advertiser, he will say something similar to offering the property at a low price because he is in a hurry to close the deal and needs to have the house rented before the end of the week. After this bait, he will say that he cannot show the house because he is not in the locality, among other excuses.

Something similar happens with the purchase or rental of vehicles, they offer them at low prices, however, the same scenarios mentioned above could occur.

Lottery or prize scams

In a lottery or prize scam, scammers may call or email you to inform you that you won a prize through a lottery or sweepstakes and then ask you to pay an upfront payment to cover fees and taxes. In some cases, they may claim to be from a federal government agency.

Romance scams

Another of the most common scams in recent years are romance scams. This fraud can be carried out by anyone and affect any victim. The process is as follows:

A user creates a fake profile on some social network and uploads photos of an attractive, yet, as far as possible, realistic person. The social networks with more cases of this type are Facebook and applications to meet people, such as Tinder. However, sometimes there are those who are able to do it even in person.

This user contacts the victim (it can be anyone, as they send messages to all the profiles they think may fall for the scam).

After a first contact, he begins to woo the victim with constant flattery and attention, a pretended passionate infatuation and a feigned need to get to know the person.

Once the victim has gained confidence, the scammer will tell some anecdote such as that he has had an accident and is in the hospital, that his car has broken down, that he has been fired, etc. Any kind of story with the objective of asking for money to help you in this critical situation.

Translated by: A.M