Not a single day now passes without headlines about online scams. If you ask anyone around you; they will have a story to tell you about being fallen prey to online financial fraud!
Interestingly, the word "scam," that too online, is on the lips of almost everyone involved in the use of the computer and Internet, be it individual, corporate, organisation, national, multinational, or international!
No doubt, technological advances have made our lives safer than ever before. However, along with this digital growth, “faceless” criminals have made their way in, and are exploiting the vulnerability of human emotion.
Finally, these scams leave their victims financially drained and emotionally stressed! In most incidents, social media is the key avenue for conversations around scam tactics and fraud awareness to take place.
Look at dating scams; they have reached an epidemic level in the cyber world. Crooks make fake profiles on dating apps and pretend to have romantic feelings for victims. With emotional manipulation, they extract money from their potential vulnerable victims.
Leave alone the psychological damage of such intimate betrayals; financial losses are so high that, in some cases, they are impossible to measure. According to the Federal Trade Commission, those involved lost $1.14 billion to the so-called ‘romance’ scams in 2023.
Reports indicate that online shopping scams -- the most common form of online fraud -- averaged 68,190 incidents a year on shopping websites. With the help of social media ads, experts foresee these scam schemes may reach millions of consumers worldwide.
According to data presented by the Atlas VPN team, based on the GoodFirms online survey, 47 per cent of social media users have fallen victim to shopping scams before.
“We are facing an epidemic in the growth of financial fraud, leading to individuals, often vulnerable people, and companies being defrauded on a massive and global scale," laments the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) in a report in March last year.
The masked identity of the criminals, along with the lack of a common international legal framework to handle those cyber offences, is one of the hurdles in the effective adjudication of such cases.
In Oman, online fraud is a criminal offence under its cybercrime law that seeks to address a wide array of illegal activities involving a computer device, computer system, or network. The law defines each form of cybercrime and prescribes a penalty, which ranges from a fine to imprisonment for a month to 15 years.
The Royal Oman Police (ROP) in association with the Central Bank of Oman and other regulators are working together to identify vulnerable victims who are being defrauded. Still, cybercriminals continue their attacks without fear of arrest or punishment.
What is more supportive is the fact the Royal Oman Police is vigilant and prepared to respond to any fraud reports, providing round-the-clock support to the community, with the overarching goal of ensuring public safety and security.
In a recent note, the ROP warned the public of a new fraud through social media platforms that the Central Bank of Oman is providing opportunities to obtain easy loan facilities and invite them to register by opening attached links.
There were 140 cases of cybercrime in the Sultanate of Oman in 2023, compared to 126 in 2022, while cases related to online content increased to 2,686 in 2023 from 2,519 in 2022. These cases included misusing financial cards, attempting, assisting, or agreeing to commit information technology fraud.
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