The advent of technological advancement has brought about two sides of a coin. Cybercrime is one of the failings of technology and the level at which it is perpetrated in the present day is constantly on the rise. It is now more like nowhere is safe in the online space anymore. Although this concept is deeper than it seems, we have the normal online space we all know and feel on a daily basis, while the dark web also exists. But that is not the topic for today.
Lately, scams especially through social media are getting more common and closer to the average human, even in my country. Virtually everyone must have heard (maybe not encountered one directly). I have had a fair share of the information regarding successful (or not) scams. But funny enough, I have not been a victim of scams. This could be partly due to the fact that I was close to older people while growing up and I had known scams exist in different fashion. So, I have been able to identify and blow the cover of some scams myself. I will highlight how I have been able to do that shortly.
One common method by which scams are perpetrated is through using unscrupulous links. Some would not have the '.com' or any known extension. However, by virtue of experience, I can tell if one is obviously what is or not. Now, one may tend to mismatch this with those ones that are gotten through a link shortener platform like bit.ly, tinyURLetc.
Also, I do engage those who send these kinds of links to confirm if what they are saying is through or not. Some come with the view of being an agent for a federal government scheme, a recruiter, an affiliate marketer etc. On chatting with them and asking a few questions, I could infer the true nature of what they proclaim. Another thing is that they all tend to ask for money at the end of it all, no matter how they paint their sugar-coated gospel. I ask as many more questions as possible till they block me themselves. I do not need even to tell them that they are scammers.
All the above sounds easier said than done, right? However, I learned how to sniff out these unscrupulous activities through a form of experience. When I see a link that already looks somehow, I copy first and paste it to any other browser apart from Chrome which is my regular go-to app instead of clicking directly because you never can tell what lies in the backend. So, I scout around the site for anything that will give them away. Sometimes, you would be instructed to share the (scam) information with other groups and all, to propagate the falsehood.
These and many more are ways to see through any (social media) scams.
Mind you, I don't do this on any other platform aside from my social media apps. I do not try it when I am on Hive.
