Your safety should be the number on concern. Follow your instincts. Always meet people in public. Always take someone else with you to the meeting and always let a trusted third person know where you are going, whom you are meeting and what time you will be back.
AFRICANKONA IS NOT INVOLVED IN ANY TRANSACTION, and does not handle payments, provide escrow, "buyer protection" or "seller certification."
NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION (bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal info, M-pesa, etc.)
DEAL LOCALLY WITH PEOPLE YOU CAN MEET IN PERSON
NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is likely a scammer.
FAKE CASHIER CHECKS & MONEY ORDERS ARE COMMON—BANKS WILL HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE when the fake is discovered later.
AVOID DEALS INVOLVING SHIPPING OR ESCROW SERVICES and know that ONLY A SCAMMER WILL "GUARANTEE" YOUR TRANSACTION.
DO NOT RENT HOUSING OR PURCHASE GOODS SIGHT-UNSEEN
DO NOT SUBMIT TO CREDIT OR BACKGROUND CHECKS until you have met the job interviewer or landlord/agent in person.
Safety Tips
- Be careful when purchasing gift cards through auction sites or classified ads; they may be empty or fraudulent.
- Be careful when bidding on auctions for products; they may be stolen.
- Be careful when replying to mystery or secret shopper jobs; you may end up owing all the money to the bank you thought you were getting paid.
- Be cautious when it comes to work-from-home opportunities, especially ones that do not require experience or time.
- Do not give money to an individual claiming to be the victim of a disaster if you do not know them.
- Do not give money to an organization if you have not heard of it.
- Do not wire money, or send a check, for an apartment you have not seen to a person you have never met.
- Do not give out personal information about yourself, such as your social security number, without verifying that a job posting is legitimate.
- Meet people in a public place and always take someone else with you. Do not carry cash or anything of value to this meeting.
Examples of Scams
- Someone claims AfricanKona will guarantee a transaction, certify a buyer/seller, OR will handle or provide protection for a payment:
AfricanKona does not have any role in any transaction. The scammer will often send an official looking (but fake) email that appears to come from AfricanKona, offering a guarantee, certifying a seller, handle payments.
- Distant person offers a genuine-looking (but fake) cashier's check:
You receive an email offering to buy your item, or rent your apartment, sight unseen.
A cashier's check is offered for your sale item as a deposit for an apartment or for your services.
Value of cashier's check often far exceeds your item—scammer offers to "trust" you, and asks you to wire the balance via money transfer service.
Banks will often cash fake checks AND THEN HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE WHEN THE CHECK FAILS TO CLEAR, sometimes including criminal prosecution.
These scams often involve a third party (shipping agent, business associate owing buyer money, etc.).
- Distant person offers to send you a money order and then have you wire money:
This is ALWAYS a scam in our experience—the cashier's check is FAKE.
Sometimes accompanies an offer of merchandise, sometimes not.
Scammer often asks for your name, address, etc. for printing on the fake check.
Deal often seems too good to be true.
- Distant seller suggests use of an online escrow service:
Many online escrow sites are FRAUDULENT and operated by scammers.
For more info, do a google search on "fake escrow" or "escrow fraud." Do your due diligence.
- Foreign company offers you a job receiving payments from customers, then wiring funds:
Foreign company may claim it is unable to receive payments from its customers directly.
You are typically offered a percentage of payments received.
This kind of "position" may be posted as a job, or offered to you via email
- Distant seller asks for a partial payment upfront, after which he will ship goods:
He says he trusts you with the partial payment.
He may say he has already shipped the goods.
Deal often sounds too good to be true
Child Exploitation
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helps not only locate missing kids, but also helps children that are victims of sexual exploitation of any kind.
If you have seen a missing child, or a child that is being victimized, please take action and make a report to the CyberTipline: www.cybertipline.com.
For more information on the National Center, please visit: www.missingkids.com.
Human Trafficking
The United States government considers trafficking in persons to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as amended (TVPA) and consistent with the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol), individuals may be trafficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were simply born into a state of servitude. Despite a term that seems to connote movement, at the heart of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons are the many forms of enslavement, not the activities involved in international transportation.
For more information on Human Trafficking, please visit http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html, http://www.state.gov/g/tip/.
To report a potential victim of Human Trafficking, or if you are a victim yourself or you know someone whom you suspect may be, please call the YOUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT or National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) hotline at 1-888-3737-888, or visit: http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/national-human-trafficking-hotline/report-a-tip.