Authorities warn of uptick in medical scams via Facebook

The Maldives police on Tuesday warned of a rise in medical scams run via social platform Facebook.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Anti-Scam Center said that there has recently been a significant increase in Facebook posts using photos of ill patients to solicit donations.

But many of these posts are scams, warned the police.

The police said that such scammers steal photos of ill patients from the internet and create sob stories about a sick loved one, most often a child, in order to gain sympathy and solicit donations. They might not pick up calls made to the phone numbers written in the post, but promptly answer messages.

The police shared some safety tips against scams. This includes:

• Calling and confirming the authenticity of such appeals before transferring money.
• Doing research to check the authenticity of photos shared in such posts, including using Google reverse image search.
• Refraining from sharing such posts unless it’s confirmed to be authentic in order to prevent others from falling trap to scams

The police urged the police to remain vigilant.