WE all know by now to ignore that Nigerian prince who emails you asking for help in exchange for a chunk of his fortune. That you probably haven’t won millions in cash based on a vague SMS riddled with spelling mistakes. And that the Smeg kettle being sold online for the low, low price of R100 is never going to arrive if you order it. But don’t think for a second that all scams are that easy to identify. Scammers are upping their game in a big way.
According to Nazia Karrim, head of product development at the Southern African Fraud Protection Service (SAFPS), South Africans face a high risk of becoming victims of scams, largely due to a lack of digital literacy. We know how to use the Internet, but we don’t necessarily know how to protect ourselves online.
John*, a 65-year-old retiree based in Durban, for example, ordered a set of workshop tools online. The tools never came; instead he received a knock-off Louis Vuitton scarf. These stories are a dime a dozen; as we become more and more reliant on the
