Online scams are on the rise in East Africa. These scams are several, including investment, cryptocurrency, phishing, deepfake photo and video, social media, gaming, and peer-to-peer payment scams.

Online scams risk your money, confidential data, and anonymity, especially, when shopping. Would you like to safely operate online from Tanzania? If so, you need to know the most prevalent internet scams to circumvent. This guide reveals these scams so you can stay alert.

Top 4 Online Scams the World is Facing Today

Here are four of the most popular web-based scams you can face in Tanzania or another country:

Peer-to-peer Payment Scams

If you decide to do an online business today, you will most likely choose PayPal as your payment method. That’s because PayPal and its closest rival, Payoneer, operate smoothly in Africa. While they are user-friendly and fast, these P2P apps give you the responsibility of guarding your transactions.

Their level of protection is not enough to protect you from scammers. Boasting over four million users, PayPal is a haven for fraudsters. According to users who have been victims, these P2P scammers can demand anything from you, including authentication codes, fees, etc.

Never click hidden links in emails or texts or send money to an unknown person before verifying their identity. Use built-in identity verification choices to transact securely.

Phishing

The emails that get into your Spam folder are mostly phishing scams. They take the form of deceptive online ads, QR codes for gifts, or SMS texts with hidden links. If you click these links, you can become a victim of financial fraud; identity theft, or device hacking to gain remote access.

Getting a text from an unknown person in the U.S. in 2024 happened at a rate of seventy per cent, according to the BBB’s (Better Business Bureau) findings.  The same phishing texts with malicious text are increasingly common in East African countries. Ignoring phishing messages is a reliable way to stay safe.

Cryptocurrency

The cryptocurrency world is one of the online places where people are searching for wealth. While cryptocurrency is a real digital currency accepted globally, it remains largely unregulated. The lack of regulation in most countries is where the problem begins. 

Although many investors benefit from limited regulation of cryptos, some cons want to make money. A common cryptocurrency scam includes a price increase scheme via a fake promotion. The scammer uses this fake promotion to trade at a higher point than other investors. This triggers the crypto price to go down, making the other investors make losses.

 Apart from this pump-and-dump scam, some people put their money in deceptive exchange programs and wallets and later lost it. Other people gave up their monies for crypto mining projects that never were. Beware of socio media crypto scams that appear as informational posts or investment opportunities with celebrity endorsements.

Use reputable cryptocurrency platforms to invest instead of following those that promise ridiculously high returns. Lastly, use your crypto wallet’s two-factor authentication code to increase your account security. Never share your seed phrase or any other private key related to your crypto investments.

Social Media

Tanzanians are gradually joining the online business space via social media networks. Unfortunately, social media is the mother of all sorts of scams. Many have lost money while going after social media job offers, event tickets, cheap products or services, free gifts, dating connections, etc.

Shopping scams are common where you purchase something that the seller never delivers. According to a BBB report, up to seventy per cent of victims said they met their scammer on Facebook. 

Forty-seven per cent of others lost money on Instagram. To stay safe, pay a social media seller via an escrow system like ApolloPay. Secondly, purchase only from people with positive ratings. Lastly, click links from SSL-certified websites or payment getaways.

Final Say

In addition to phishing, peer-to-peer, cryptocurrency, and sociomedia scams, several others exist online. Be careful when transacting or interacting with strangers on the internet. Do not click any unknown link hidden in your emails so as not to fall victim to a phishing attempt.