Help and favours:

• Be on high alert when strangers ask for special financial favours or urgent assistance, no matter how sincere or persistent the individuals may seem. Never share your banking details with strangers, and think twice before sending money to someone you recently met online or haven’t met in person yet.

• Consumers who use social media platforms to meet companions or potential life partners should look out for fraudsters who use emotional triggers to scam people out of their hardearned cash. Dating and romance scammers often lower your defences by appealing to your compassionate side in order to take advantage of you.

• Avoid sharing personal information, such as ID number, passport number, driver’s licence, payslip, bank statement, municipal or account statements on social media. Fraudsters can steal your information and use it illegally by impersonating you.

• Scammers often trick people through social media platforms by claiming to have large sums of cash that they need to deposit urgently through a foreign bank account. Do not allow your account to be used by another person to deposit or transact on. This can put you in serious trouble with authorities, as allowing proceeds