{"id":110,"date":"2011-01-05T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyoteblog.posterous.com\/aid-workers-need-to-help-local-staff-avoid-sc"},"modified":"2020-08-31T13:21:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-31T20:21:15","slug":"scamsabroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2011\/01\/scamsabroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Aid workers need to help local staff avoid scams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Today, I got an email from a close friend in Kabul, a young Afghan woman who works in an Afghan federal ministry. She forwarded me an email from another Afghan colleague, telling her she had “won” a USA visa and that she had to pay $150 in order to finalize the process. She wanted to know if it was real.<\/p>\n

Most every young Afghan woman I know is trying to get out of Afghanistan. They are not only terrified of what the withdrawal of coalition forces will bring; they are terrified of being forced into marriage<\/a>, and forced to give up their jobs, being imprisoned in a stranger’s home with a family who treat female non-blood relatives as indentured servants – or worse. Afghan women are desperate and vulnerable — in a perfect position to be taken advantage of by someone promising exactly what they want to hear.<\/p>\n

For someone with intermediate English skills, the email looked oh-so-real. For me, it was obvious that it was fake<\/a>, but I’m a native English speaker, a pretty savvy Internet user, and an amateur researcher regarding myths and urban legends<\/a>. I did my best to explain to my friend how to know when something like this is fake, as this email is. And it made me wish I was there to do a workshop for all of my Afghan colleagues, especially the women, to show them how to avoid email scams.<\/p>\n

If you are working in aid, development or humanitarian affairs on site in a developing country, I hope you will consider doing a lunchtime workshop for your locally-recruited colleagues about online scams<\/strong>. Just 30 – 45 minutes would be so helpful. Talk about visa scams, inheritance scams and phishing. Even if locally-recruited staff are particularly savvy about knowing when something is a fraud, their family and friends may not be, and you would be helping them to help their family and friends avoid being taken advantage of.<\/p>\n

I am the first to tell a friend that a warning they have posted in their Facebook status or an email warning they have sent to all their friends is a fake. It turned a couple of people into ex-friends – how dare I tell them such a thing is false? Where’s the real harm in forwarding these kinds of messages? Today, I was reminded yet again where the harm is — the very real harm.<\/p>\n

Also see:<\/p>\n