Cerebral Combustion
10 thousand-lesson worth: A guide to online scams
It is not always a good idea to entrust your money on just anybody you are completely unfamiliar with. Especially and most important of all doing transactions over the internet where you do not have any freaking idea if who you are dealing with is somebody credible or not. For example, purchasing items on-line via dotcoms which profusely claims and guarantees fast, hassle-free and honest sellers. The proliferation of internet auction sites has dramatically grown since the advancements of technology have been readily available to most of us, making business transactions easier to a large extent that now majority of the websites around the world are dedicated to money-making purposes. With this, of course, the Internet has also given birth to online scammers and bogus sellers who will perhaps strip you of a month or a year of your hard-earned money, depending on the value of the product or item that you are interested to acquire. Because some of the items sold are cut half of its market price, many careless internet users are tempted to purchase, lured by the thought that with such a big discount they can store more from their savings to keep -- which is not always the case, because thousands of denizens with dark and malicious intents lurking in the cyberspace are always in a hunt for victims on line.
Here is what happens in most of the online auction schemes, you send in your money and you get nothing in return. What actually transpires during such transactions is that you never get the product promised to be sent to you immediately after you have already wired or sent the money as your payment. When you call to check or follow up your purchase the contact number of that seller can no longer be reached, and you have no other information or whatsoever crucial facts on hand to get your money back after you realized you got duped by a fraud seller or of an internet scammer. It pains to realize moments later that you have been ripped-off, not only of your money but of your time as well.
Take the case of my friend. Just over a week ago, he excitedly told me about the new Xbox 360 that was being sold in sulit.com for only ten thousand pesos, a far cry from its original price which can range from 24 to 28 thousand pesos if bought readily in the market. To cut the story short, he called the number of the seller posted in the website, asked a few questions, exchanged a bit of information and sealed the deal. Next thing he knew, the contact number and the seller's profile in the website is now inactive and found out that the item is also being sold in other auction sites. In the end, my friend has not yet recovered from involuntarily bidding his money goodbye.
According to Siemens in-house study for the Philippine Internet Demographics, there are approximately 24 million internet users in the country alone that might further increase in as much up to 41 million users in 2014. In relation to this, there are about 13 percent of Filipino internet users who purchase on line.
Along with the growing number of internet users, scammers also expand. After all, it is an easy job which bogus sellers can collect thousands of amounts in just a single transaction. So, I cannot suggest anything more important than to better refrain from this kind of business dealings on-line. But if you really are interested in the product, please, do further and thorough background checks first to certify that the seller or the product is genuine. As much as possible, deal locally with folks you can meet in person. Never wire funds that do not state full authenticated information of the seller, example, via money grams like Western Union even on mobile form of payments like g-cash. Be wary of giving out your financial information to anyone like your bank account or credit card information. Avoid deals which only require or involve shipping and are not favorable of meet-ups. If this is stated in the website, flee. This is exactly what happened to my friend. The seller refuses to meet face to face with interested buyers who wants to make sure that the item is in good condition and foremost to avoid being deceived, saying that he was a busy guy.
But it was too late to realize that. The seller, a certain beaming Rolando Lim, was made ten thousand richer that day. It was a hard lesson to take and come to think of it, at ten-thousand worth, it was an expensive lesson too. So here's the thing he should have asked himself first: Who in their right mind would sell a new limited edition Xbox 360 worth 24 thousand down to 10 thousand?