Fraud in Online Classified Ads: Strategies, Risks, and Detection Methods: A Survey

Abstract

Because of today’s tremendous economic growth, social, and technological advances, the world has seen the formation of economic blocs. The intensity of the rivalry between domestic and foreign products has increased to improve their capacity in terms of quality and price, while e-commerce has grown in popularity, both with exhibitors and consumers. The citizens can search the internet for their needs at any time, in any country, but new risks have emerged that threaten the consumer who purchases and concludes contracts electronically, such as fraud risks, misrepresentation, commercial extortion, and piracy, as well as the consumer’s inability to truly inspect the contractual object, and so on. In this survey, we give a study that clarifies the types of deceptive ads that are made online, whether through spam or popular advertising sites like Craigslist or online dating, and we show what action may be taken to prevent ad fraud.

Keywords:

• Deceptive ads
• electronic fraud
• commercial extortion
• piracy
• fake advertisements

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.