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The global quarantine opened up many new opportunities on the internet, as people were isolated or tried to have less contact to avoid getting sick. They spent a lot of time online, and thus the business of online learning began to develop. Everyone could find a topic of interest:
- foreign languages;
- artistic skills;
- craft courses;
- culinary arts;
- and even dance or yoga.
A diverse range of interesting leisure methods, some did not waste time and gained additional education.
The world wide web offers a large number of different courses, but where there's money, dishonest people, scammers, who dream of earning through deception, always appear.
Online Course Scams
With the development of online courses, many scammers have emerged who promise after completing their courses:
- high incomes;
- radical life changes;
- career growth;
- unexpected successes;
- exclusive knowledge and insider information.
But in most cases, these methods do not work, scammers use psychological tricks to sell their fake course and make money. Such courses bear almost no educational value.
Scammers promise to teach quick earnings on financial exchanges or cryptocurrencies, through trading or mining, also promising golden mountains after completing the course. They show luxurious life in advertisements, somewhere abroad, saying that after the course financial problems will be solved immediately. It will be possible to buy an apartment, car, house, travel abroad. It doesn't matter which part of the planet you live in, the main thing is to buy and pay for the courses, and everything will work out.
Any conscious person should understand that money does not come out of thin air, to earn it you need to make efforts. Therefore, most often, such courses are fraudulent, aiming only at the payment for the courses. The scammer makes one video in which he talks in general phrases, and nothing specific.
Fraud on Educational Platforms
Scammers do not possess a great variety of knowledge on various educational subjects. They try not to touch on specific topics that really interest people, such as:
- accounting,
- management,
- programming,
- information security,
- procurement,
- production process management.
Since these topics carry legal weight and require special education, corresponding knowledge, and the ability to quickly navigate changes in legislation for their teaching.
Therefore, fake trainers choose easy topics where there is no need to study deep issues related to finance, law, jurisprudence, programming. Mainly, scammers teach such pseudo-sciences as:
- Time management;
- motivational science;
- basics of leadership;
- personal development efficiency;
- working on cryptocurrency exchanges;
- self-knowledge;
- self-improvement.
To lure a victim to buy a course, scammers create flashy advertisements on social networks, also sending fake links. Acting psychologically on a person, they offer to buy the course at a discount price, but the purchase time is limited, so it must be done in the near future, not missing the chance.
Such persuasions often influence the decision to buy the course. Of course, each person independently chooses in which direction to develop and educate themselves, but caution in choosing online courses is helpful, so careful reading of the offered information helps make the right choice.
Fraud Through Education
Training courses never provide their students with state-standard documents. It could be a piece of paper stating that you have completed some level of training courses. These documents are meaningless in serious organizations since scammers do not have licenses; they produce fake certificates and diplomas.
Very often, scammers do not have the appropriate education or permission to conduct teaching activities, which makes their courses, in terms of obtaining documents, completely useless. It's like watching a video on a social network for training, only they charge a lot of money for it. Also, scammers may require a prepayment for the course or to buy it fully and immediately. But at the same time, conduct one lesson with general theses or extract necessary information from the victim under the pretext of acquaintance or filling out questionnaires for further work.
Still, not all online courses on the internet are fraudulent; one should understand how to choose online courses correctly:
- it is necessary to conduct your own investigation, find out reviews about the company, preferably from familiar people who are knowledgeable or have already undergone training, their recommendations in choosing a trainer will not be superfluous;
- it wouldn't hurt to search the internet for information about the organization offering online training;
- if possible, check the experience of the instructors in the courses, what is their experience working with students online.
If they offer to buy courses and make an immediate decision, these are definitely scammers who just need to make money but not provide any education.