eBusiness Weekly
Joseline Sithole
Ramani Igbalode Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, as he is affectionately known by his 2,4 million Instagram followers, was dramatically arrested by a joint operation of the United States and the United Arab Emirates governments, code named Fox Hunt Two.
Hushpuppi, is accused of money laundering, cyber fraud, hacking and scamming. When detectives swooped on his luxurious apartment in Dubai he allegedly had £30 million on him, though his ill-gotten wealth is said to run into several millions of dollars.
At his best, Abbas wore every designer wear that he could possibly think of, so much so that he received a personal invitation from Louis Vuitton himself for his Virgil Abloh SS20 Fashion Show. His birthday cake had a Fendi label and some shopping bags engrained onto the cake. In one of his Instagram post, Hushpuppi intoned, “A Different type of glow and standard when you start hopping out of Rolls Royces to catch a jet to attend fashion shows in a different continent. Your smile begins to be bright as the sun.” Let’s hope that, that bright smile is still there in a federal jail in the US.
Either way his legions of fans are going to miss glimpses of that luxurious lifestyle. One of his loyal fans reacted by saying “Damn man you should not have been hushed”.
What are scams?
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a scam is a “fraudulent or deceptive act or operation”. The us.norton.com website notes that the “term generally refers to someone using internet services or software to defraud or take advantage of victims typically for financial gain.”
There are several ways in which victims can be scammed. Potential victims may be contacted through personal or work email accounts, social networking sites, dating apps, or harvesting financial information from fake internet links. In the end the victims always lose money in many instances that they fail to recover from.
What is the cost of scams?
According to us.norton.com the number of internet crimes jumped 17 percent from 2017 to 2018. The website quotes the, FBI’s Internet Crime Complainant Centre, as receiving 351 936 complaints of internet crime.
These losses amounted to 2,7 billion. In addition, the trends show that the age group that experiences substantial losses due to internet are the over 80s with younger age groups experiencing less fraud than their older counterparts. Another study, cited from the Wikipedia website, by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee, notes that cybercrime costs the global economy as much as $600 billion, which translates into 0,8 percent of total global GDP.
What are the most
common scams?
Internet Romance Scams: This one is the most common and is largely targeted to lonely women. Though online dating can be a good way to connect, women should be wary of predators who pose as suitable suitors.
When fraudsters gain victim’s trust they then request confidential information of bank accounts or ask for money. In 2018, research shows that victims lost about 362 million to internet scammers in this way. It seems “love might not be blind” after all when you wake up with zero dollars in your account
Quick-money promises: Zimbabweans who are unemployed or are paid low salaries are particularly prone to this scheme. Scammers place advertisements that request job seekers to pay certain amounts to accounts. In return the job seekers are guaranteed jobs in those companies. In some cases, job seekers are required to submit personal information that can be used in fraudulent activities. As a precautionary measure, it is always important for job seekers to use reputable agencies and recruiters.
Phishing scams
Phishing scams are especially prevalent within the banking sector. Usually fraudsters send would be victims email message that appears to be from legitimate sources, such as a banks, social networking site and online stores.
The message attempts to deceive you into providing valuable and sensitive personal data, such as passwords, credit card numbers and bank account information. It is always important to check on the company’s website and if possible always to check with the institutions by writing an email or calling their help desks.
The anatomy of
scams in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is not immune to cybercrimes as well. Though not necessarily internet, the agricultural sector is seeing a large number of scams being perpetrated to its members.
Banking
I was trying to draw some funds from an ABSA, ATM in Randburg in Johannesburg. Two very smartly dressed men came by, and started harassing me for being slow. Within an instance, one of them had grabbed my card and started jamming it into the ATM. Unfortunately, the card did not respond and they suddenly left. An hour later my account was cleaned out somewhere in Soweto some 3o kilometres away. Luckily I managed to recover the funds from ABSA. In Zimbabwe, though ATM usage is now minimal, SMEs should be extra vigilant when using ATMs. It is important to ensure that one does not give their pin numbers “willy nilly” to anyone even some family members. Sometimes culprits collude with attendants at points of sale who use POS machines to clone client’s cards. A cloned card usually declines several times and sometimes you can start seeing unusual transactions. Furthermore, It is also important to keep your card safe. It is always best to call your financial service provider to cancel your card if you suspect unusual activity on your card.
Pyramid Schemes
Pyramid schemes are a firm favourite with Zimbabweans. According to Investopedia “A pyramid scheme is a sketchy and unsustainable business model, where a few top-level members recruit newer members, who pay upfront costs up the chain, to those who enrolled them.”
In addition, as newer members in turn recruit underlings of their own, a portion of the subsequent fees they receive is also kicked up the chain. Some of these pyramid schemes are illegal in some countries. Our sister paper, The Herald, has carried several stories about these schemes at most, warning the general public on the detriments of such schemes. Most recently in a story published on May 15, 2020 in the same paper, two brothers Romeo and Tinashe Samhungu swindled depositors about $2 million. However, the mother of all the Pyramid schemes was the MMM. MMM was started by a Russian called Sergei Mavrodi. In South Africa the “folk” who subscribed to this scheme regally called themselves the “Mavrodians”.
They were also in the habit of displaying their opulence. Nevertheless, a lot of people woke up to find their bank accounts frozen and some of their assets frozen.
According to an article entitled “MMM as a Phenomenon of the Russian Consumer Culture” by the Association of Consumer Research, “Many of those who played with MMM were predominantly people without prior experience with investments, and who were used to living on fixed income. MMM not only helped them lose their lifetime savings but also their faith in a market economy.”
In Zimbabwe, famous the Geozing and Perfect Shot Investments schemes left many subscribers without their hard earned savings.
Scams in the agricultural sector
Though these are not generally performed on the internet, the agricultural sector is now a breeding ground for scammers and fraudsters who are fleecing farmers of their hard earned produce. One lady in one of my agricultural WhatsApp groups, testified that she had been given fake notes and the scammers walked away with the bulk of her agricultural produce.
The post read that “Your worst nightmare is therefore being left with fake notes when you had surrendered high value stock” agriculturalists are warned among other things not to; accept high value notes, entertain two buyers, accept buyers coming with two vehicles.
Buyers were also warned to ensure that they can identify the car especially those without any number plates.
How do I insulate myself from scams?
The core of every scammers’ success is access to information. To this end, it is important that everyone should be vigilant in not giving personal information to untrustworthy sources. If you receive any suspicious email or text from any organisation, it is always important to verify its contents with their help desk.
In addition, always verify any email that requests you to deposit any money in any account. Once I received an email from my friend who was purporting to be in Nigeria. He said his money and his luggage had been stolen. I was then supposed to urgently deposit some cash in some account. I quickly called him. He was happily having lunch with a client in Johannesburg.
Wellington Toni, the former Sports Editor of the Sunday News and Newsday and now writer at www.itnewszimbabwe.co.zw and www.zambezitnews.com gives this advice to the public; “It is difficult to check for authenticity in some of those messages we come across in social media but its every internet user’s obligation to cross check.”
In addition, he urges the public to be more vigilant against cyber-crime. He also implores the Government to enforce stiffer laws and jail terms against such crimes.
Overall it is important for SMEs to be wary of all internet scams and like I always say,”Lets use our common sense” when confronted with the possibility of obtaining an obscene amount of money in a short period of time. I sign off with this quote by Karen J. Fowler” The value of money is a scam perpetrated by those who have it over those who don’t”.
