How to nav­i­gate small ad plat­forms safely

Small ad plat­forms are a favourite for use in fraud­u­lent activ­i­ties. Use them with cau­tion, and make sure to observe our rules of con­duct below.

Shop­ping and paying online has been the norm for a while and is now con­sid­ered safe, too, in par­tic­ular when dealing with well-known online shops or pay­ment providers. Par­tic­ular cau­tion should be exer­cised still though with small ad plat­forms, since the busi­ness part­ners you deal with here are pri­vate indi­vid­uals, not always with honest intentions.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on online fraud, in par­tic­ular on the topic of delivery ser­vice advance pay­ment fraud, can be found on this page: www.skppsc.ch/online-betrug (Schweiz­erische Krim­i­nal­präven­tion, SKP).

You should also observe the fol­lowing rules of conduct:

• When looking for any items, limit your search to offers from your own region only. This way, many fraud­u­lent offers (which aim to reach as many people as pos­sible) are not dis­played in the first place.
• Check reviews and other offers by poten­tial busi­ness part­ners before con­sid­ering a deal.
• Before every pur­chase, care­fully read the descrip­tion of the offer involved. Ensure that all infor­ma­tion about a product rel­e­vant to you is included. In case of doubt, ask.
• Only ever buy and sell col­lec­tion-only and against cash. Fraud­sters are gen­er­ally located abroad and try to avoid any per­sonal con­tact with their victims.
• Check every mes­sage you receive in con­nec­tion with small ad plat­forms, for phishing char­ac­ter­is­tics. Fraud­sters often try to entice you to dis­close your log-in or credit card details by sending you faked mes­sages, pur­port­edly by finan­cial insti­tu­tions or courier services.
•  Never send any copy of your ID doc­u­men­ta­tion to per­sons unknown. Con­versely, don’t get deceived by any ID card image sent to you either. Quite often, these have been stolen or faked.
• Never pay any poten­tial insur­ance, han­dling or ship­ping charges in advance.
• Don’t get involved in any uncon­ven­tional or new pay­ment methods you are not familiar with.
• Be wary if your coun­ter­part would like to move to a dif­ferent channel of communication.
• Stop all con­tact with your coun­ter­part if he or she tries to push or pres­surise you.
• Don’t fall for unre­al­istic offers, use your common sense.