Learn how to identify easy money offers that could be fraud

Today there has been an increase in business proposals that offer great economic benefits, in a short execution time and without requiring a greater work effort, which despite being traditional frauds continue to affect people.

“It is enough to surf the internet and visit some social networks to find hundreds of ‘magic’ messages that offer to make money in exchange for paying a modest sum, or make a recommendation to some referrals to subscribe to an entrepreneurship system. However, these types of scams are not new, they have always existed and according to the times they change the type of speech and method to attract attention, but basically the intention is the same: to take advantage of the ignorance and the need for people” says Jamez Hernández, president and co-founder of Trust Corporate.

As reported by Statista, a global market analyst, last year more than 66.6% of the world’s population had access to a smartphone, and around 5,000 million users are connected to the Internet.

Facebook’s registered profiles exceed 2,900 million and on Instagram the figure rises to more than 1,000 million. Twitter has 330 million users, 500 million tweets are published every day. In just one minute, more than 69 million text messages are sent through platforms such as WhatsApp64 million photos are shared through Instagram and 197.6 million emails are sent.

“Regardless of whether it is a face-to-face meeting, or a message on social networks, through a phone call or through an email, The main principle to apply to any business or investment opportunity is that you should always know that if it seems too good to be true, it is because it really is not.and because behind it there is an imminent danger of suffering a scam”, explains Hernández.

Here are three types of proposals that should serve as an alert to act with caution and not fall for an alleged scam:

Pyramid model: Also known as a Ponzi Scheme, it is a type of scam through which interested parties are offered to receive a very high return for the investment they make, and which means being covered with the arrival of new beneficiaries who contribute their capital. The growth of this system gradually makes it impossible to cover the contribution of use and the high benefit of each other, until it collapses.

“In recent years, the most emblematic case in this model was that of Bernard Madoff, an American stock investor and banker arrested in 2008 by the FBI accused of fraud of more than USD $64.8 billion. His scam consisted of taking capital in exchange for large profits that were effective at first, but years later it became clear that they consisted of a pyramid scheme that today has become one of the biggest embezzlements in history, ”explains Hernández.

Advance payments: Another system that still causes victims is the one also known in some countries as the letter from the prince of Nigeria (and its variants), uses the sending of messages and emails, which under a supposed opportunity to collect a large sum of money or access To a loan in very favorable conditions, they request a series of data and documents, when the process advances and the person is very close to receiving the respective amount offered, it is requested to cancel in advance some expenses and commissions required to proceed with the disbursement of the funds. This is when the scam occurs, because the promised amount is never received and the criminal disappears with this deposit.

Being a millionaire, without working: His strategy in this case is to make people feel that it is only necessary to acquire or use a certain tool to take advantage of a ‘golden opportunity’ and thus stop being employed, having to work every day and suffering financial problems.

“Phrases like, ‘if you want to succeed you must change your way of thinking’, ‘if you don’t dream big you won’t get what it takes to grow’, they take advantage of people and motivate them to fall for offers or services that later they don’t get. materialize and that what they seek is to keep the money of the interested parties”, comments the CEO of Trust Corporate.