Maleja Restrepo fell into a scam of false documents and told her experience

Cybercrime in Colombia has increased considerably in recent years, which is evidenced by reports of different methods to embezzle citizens who fall into these. Fake job offers, calls or messages with fraudulent links from banks or websites that imitate clothing brands are some of the most common methods.

Another one that tends to be seen a lot is Soat on the internet. And since the procedures for this document can be done virtually through insurers, many unscrupulous people have taken advantage of this situation to set up irregular domains, capturing the personal data of the victims or requesting payments to personal bank accounts.

The model Maleja Restrepo, who has become a social media sensation with more than 4.4 million followers on her Instagram account, was affected by this type of crime. Recently, she shared on her digital platforms how she fell into the trap and ended up losing money, hoping to obtain mandatory insurance for her vehicle.

“Today I woke up owing my husband 900,000 pesos because I was the one who fell into those cheating pages where they sell Soat. I got carried away because the link looked good,” indicated the woman from Valle del Cauca through some stories that she published on her profile.

As he explained to his audience, what happened to him is the same thing that has happened to thousands of people who have reported similar situations online.

It all started when you made a query on Google about “How to buy SOAT online”. Upon loading the results, several pages appeared where you could supposedly complete the procedure. He chose one of the first and continued step by step.

According to what other users have stated, not even pages with the “Sponsored” advertisement are saved from the possibility of not being entirely legitimate.

Thus, on the website the famous woman wrote all her information and that of the vehicle, after which she was redirected to a WhatsApp chat with the logo of the company providing the service.

In the conversation they sent him a personal bank account to which he decided to send the money without thinking twice, which he described as his “big mistake.”

In this way, it indicated that it seeks to contact the bank of the recipient of the transfer to notify them of the illegal use that is being made of that account.

“I’m going to do that to see if I can report this account as one that they are scamming with,” said the driver from Valle del Cauca.

With the above, these cases become a real headache for Colombians, because according to Fasecolda data, during 2022, 4,742 cases of fraud were reported, the value of which was estimated at close to $2.4 billion. For its part, so far in 2023, 5,267 cases have been reported, a value that amounts to $2,650 million.

How to avoid being scammed when purchasing Soat?

So that the same thing as Maleja Restrepo does not happen to you, it is key that if you are asked to send your Soat payment through a digital wallet (Nequi, Daviplata, Bancolombia at hand), before paying you can verify with the security lines. customer service of your insurance company that this payment method option exists and is effective. With Infobae

Related