Scammers target online shoppers
The police have warned businesspeople bidding for tenders, purchasing materials and equipment or any goods online to be careful of scammers who masquerade as credible companies with the aim of defrauding bidders.
The scammers, who claim to have tender openings or goods for sale, have swindled many people online including in Botswana. The police said the scammers usually prefer using emails as their form of communication but they also use unregistered local phone numbers.
The Botswana Police Service’s (BPS) public relations officer, Assistant Commissioner Dipheko Motube issued a warning to businesspeople and the public at large saying they are faced with a series of online scam cases perpetrated through email communication.
He revealed that local entrepreneurs have fallen prey to these scammers and have been swindled a lot of money. Motube said they have recorded three cases this year of which local entrepreneurs were swindled over R3.5 million.
He stated that the targeted companies are mostly supply chain businesses, construction and electrical companies amongst others. “Last year we recorded five cases of which the local businesspeople were swindled close to R800,000 and P781,000.
We have since established that there is a syndicate of people masquerading as credible well known officers to a point of calling themselves with names of government officials working in those companies,” he said.
Narrating how these scammers defraud people, Motube said they send a message through an email claiming to have tender openings and to have learnt about that local business and would like the company to bid for such tender(s) and supply them with certain equipment.
Moreover, he stated that the online scammers would even link their target with a supplier of their choice based in South Africa only for them to realise after being swindled money that it was a syndicate of fraudsters.
“Throughout, one would not suspect anything because there shall be constant communication between the two parties. These scammers would also masquerade as government officials to a point calling themselves with their names only to cut communication after their victims have deposited the money into their South African bank accounts,” Motube said.
He stated that usually the fraudsters play around with security features of credible companies’ email address and use them to swindle unsuspecting entrepreneurs. Motube called on the business community to consider extending such email communication physically after receiving them than depending on the use of emails only.
He advised them to enquire more on it physically by meeting such companies face to face to avoid falling prey to those scammers. Furthermore, he added that investigations of these cases are a headache because they usually take years to be resolved as the source of those emails usually lead to countries abroad.
“Moreover, it is not like we will be able to solve such cases because it is usually not easy to identify the person who was behind that communication and most importantly be able to locate the stolen money,” he said.
Additionally, Motube said these fraudsters also have a tendency of identifying local entrepreneurs with business deals across the border even though they have not established how but suspecting that in some cases it might be inside information.
“They would send them messages via email claiming to be from such companies notifying them of new banking details and email addresses to be used henceforth only for the constant communications to stop after their victims have deposited the money into their accounts,” he said.
He called on entrepreneurs to always consider contacting such businesses through phone calls to establish the legitimacy of that message and avoid falling prey to scammers.