Scams during the festive season are the most lucrative for criminals, according to experts. How can customers ensure that they don’t fall prey during the holiday season and into 2025?
As the festive season continues, experts have warned consumers that although it is a time to be merry and jolly, it’s also when South Africans could face a heightened risk of becoming victims to a variety of scams.
“Certain scams are seasonal in nature, and the scammers take advantage of that opportunity to maximize their returns during those periods,” Nazia Karrim, Head of Product Development at the Southern African Fraud Prevention Service tells FORBES AFRICA.
“And of course, the festive season is particularly lucrative, taking into account all the activity that takes place during this time.”
Jemaine Manikus, CEO of Latita Africa, which offers business and consulting services, further states that people tend to be more relaxed at this time of year and to let their guard down, making them easy targets.
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“It opens up opportunities for fraudsters to exploit and this is done via people just manipulating things or systems that they’ve gained confidence in, believing that these requests for information come from reliable and trustworthy sources when, in fact, it’s a potential scam artist on the other side,” he explains.
The highest increase in fraud during the festive season will likely be through online shopping. According to Karrim, during Black Friday, that already reflected the highest increase in volume and the incidents reported by victims were primarily associated with the purchasing of goods and services online.
She also noted that scams like vacation deals, where a customer would see a deal for a holiday online and click the link, and donation scams (fake charities) are the most prevalent during this time.
However the most unfortunate is that of scams of a personal nature.
“These are also known as lonely heart scams,” Karrim adds.
“A lot of the people who maybe have lost family members, who may not be living close to their family members [or] maybe looking for people to spend time with – the scammers here will make themselves available.”
Karrim says that statistics have shown that 15% of the victims meet their scammers face-to-face at some point. Some of this also stems from online dating, which is very popular in terms of inciting fraudulent behaviour.
“They may have chosen to just contact somebody online, speak to them, talk to them over the festive season, and discuss some things. And, in this case, they fall victim from a romance scams perspective, looking for that companionship,” she says.
So how can people ensure that they don’t fall victim to any of these scams?
“Don’t think for a moment that you’re too clever to be outsmarted by them; they are masters at getting you to do what they want because they’ve practiced on thousands of others before you,” says Manikus.
He explains that anyone asking for information via SMS and unsolicited emails which aren’t secure should be your first red flag. For example, credible institutions, like banks, have applications with which they use to communicate to customers.
“It is critical that we avoid offering information on any scale to anybody that calls us if it’s not something that we can verify ourselves. And I think just avoid anybody calling you and kind of creating this perception that they are the authority on the other side, and they need to get information,” he adds.
Karrim further states that it is also a mindset shift. Many people do not think beyond the scam and how it could affect those around them.
A scenario she paints is when people walk through crowded streets with their phones in their hand or ask strangers to take photographs of their memorable holiday moments. The risk is that the device can be stolen, compromising personal information, social media accounts, and of course, finances.
However, data like contact lists are also compromised.
“This will harm you, yes, but also your loved ones, and any of the associated people that are linked to your device on your contact list, on your emails list. Your device is compromised; you are then helping facilitate the expansion of potentially new targets for that scammer,” Karrim adds.
Customers are also encouraged to take care of the applications they download, where they download them from, and which security settings change once they have downloaded these third-party applications.
Karrim encourages users to always read the terms and conditions – it’s an easy thing to not do but she says, in the long run, it will bring more cheer this holiday season.
“What we need to start practicing is what we call awareness,” she adds.
“And that is speaking to a change in our behaviors and habits. It speaks to being proactive and employing due diligence and staying alert, being mindful of what we do when we do it, what we share, how we share it, and who we share it with. ‘Who are we choosing to trust with our information? And can those people be trusted to keep it safe?’”
This vigilance needs to continue into 2025. The reality is that cybercrime remains one of the top three scams that occur in South Africa and, due to the continued shift from traditional habits to an increased reliability on technology, this crime may grow in the New Year.
In January alone, Karrim predicts that registration scams, where students have to pay a registration fee to their tertiary education institution, will increase and loan scams will become more prevalent.
“The primary thing you need to keep at the back of your head is, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
“I think what’s important to note is, when you find yourself having a situation where you think you’ve been [defrauded],” Manikus adds, “that you follow the general steps to ensure that it safeguards you from any continued fraud by going in and reporting this to the relevant institution.”
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