Attempts to curb these scams have been unsuccessful, and people have continued to fall victims. It was to this end that a young Nigerian called a team together and they began work on a startup platform known as SCAM ALERT NG. The platform is poised to tackle online fraud head on and is indeed solving one of the persistent problems in the continent. SCAM ALERT NG boasts of a robust database of online scammers and is made available to the public and anybody who wants to verify an ecommerce platform, seller or people making an offer to them that involves money before going ahead with such transactions. The database has the names, phone numbers, account numbers and other details of confirmed scammers in Nigeria and users are given the privilege to report persons that may not be on the database already. Speaking about this, the founder of the platform, Mr. Kalada Belema Meshack-Hart said that ‘the number of reports that reach me frequently about the activities of these online fraudsters is quite disturbing, especially the ones posing as sellers on Instagram. I thought of what to do about it for some time before the idea for this website came. We are calling out to everybody to use it to verify those that pose online with an offer or more. The site is user-friendly and quite simple for anybody to use”. The Scam Alert NG team believes you shouldn’t work so hard for your money and then lose it to greedy people online. They want everyone to take advantage of the website and be sure to verify people on it before going ahead with transactions. With the site, authentic sellers online will be able to get a verification badge and thus buyers can patronize them with a guarantee from SCAM ALERT NG. Sellers are advised to get verification from the website to enable them do their transactions knowing that more people will trust them with such transactions having been verified by the scam vigilant website. Users will also be able to see verified stores and know which to trust for transactions online. Scam Alert is the first of its kind in Nigeria, solving a unique problem that has received very little attention. It sure looks like a great solution, and we can’t wait see how it scales and outsmart scammers.
