It must be taken into account that, if we refer to this type of buying / selling platforms, in most cases we really do not know who we are dealing with. At any time we can find false and even malicious profiles that try to get personal information that can put us at risk. Obviously we can also find users who are going to try to scam us and steal our money one way or another through electronic commerce.
In this case we want to focus on a fairly common practice that some of you may have come across when negotiating in the aforementioned Wallapop. When selling a certain item that we have uploaded on the platform, the supposed buyer asks us for captures of our ID to verify that everything is in order. Obviously we are referring to two images corresponding to both sides of the National Identity Document.
From there and once we have sent the images of the official documentation, the sale as such does not take place. The first thing we should know is that we should never provide buyers or sellers with this type of images in the form of captures about official documents.
Risks and solutions when sending the DNI in Wallapop
Those submitted images can be used for various malicious purposes such as phishing practices and other scams. Malicious actors can use these captures of our ID to defraud other users of this and other platforms, In our name. Therefore, the scammed will denounce us that we are innocent of everything, except for having sent a copy of our National identity documentwhen we shouldn’t have.
Obviously this can translate into multiple court summons from various users who feel cheated by us being innocent. In addition, another official document fraudulent use is usually made in betting houses. They are used to open accounts by those users who are no longer allowed to use their own ID.
Therefore, you can already imagine that the best thing we can do is not send this type of document through digital platforms like Wallapop. And if we do, it is advisable to add a personal watermark explaining who requested it, or covering and blurring certain key data of the document. In that watermark we can also specify that it is an invalid copy so that it cannot be used officially on any other site.
Also, if we suspect that we may be victims of frauddenounce the Police or the Civil Guard will not hurt either, although in many cases it will not help us at all. And it is that many of the complaints that have been detected derived from fraudulent uses of the DNI, go directly through the courts without the Police being able to do anything.
