As Christmas is slowly coming at our doors, a lot of festive routines will occur such as 24hr shopping and late nights! During these times, a lot of desperate people will try to steal or scam people to get money. Here are some common tricks used by robbers and scammers in these periods.
1) Pickpockets: A very common way to steal money is by pickpocketing. This especially doubles, triples, or even quadruples during Christmas as shops and supermarkets are open for 24 hours and a lot of people are swarming in those shops causing multiple opportunities for them. It is never too late to buy a wallet chain or even the classic keeping your hand in your pocket shall scare or discourage them.
2) Gift card scams: one other notorious scam is gift card scam where people take photos of the gift card codes and sell them or they go to shops and quickly take these photos and you wasted your money on a piece of cardboard or plastic. The even sadder part is that you can't refund them which means it is a use at your own risk.
3) Beggars: during this time a lot of beggars will also ask you for a sum of money for some sort of cause such as disability which is sometimes false and can gain up to Rs 20,000 per day!!! Always verify if their legal papers and licenses are with them and are NOT EXPIRED!!
4) Telephone and SMS scams: this is by far the worst scam to ever fall into if there is an unknown number even if they say they are from your mobile provider or bank DO NOT GIVE THEM INFORMATION OR SPEAK. Sometimes they record your voice and use it to take money out of your bank account. This is mostly applied to adults who are the most vulnerable to this scam so please educate them of this scam.
These are some common Christmas scams. Please do not fall for them and for that I wish you a very scam-free Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Writer: Ayush Erkadoo
Editors: Urvi Elliah, Khisha Callicharrun
Comentarios