Since they went on sale last August 24, the figurines of Qatar World Cup 2022 caused all sorts of conflicts, which included a unusual deficiency, an unexpected high demand and even a criticized government mediation between the newsstand and the Panini company. Now the company has gone out to warn about possible scams.

In a statement on social media, the company made it clear some movements that did not match. The Instagram alert comes after the intervention of the Secretary of Commerce Matías Tombolini and his deployment of officials for an official intervention that was talked about last week.

“In consideration of the fact that it has been verified on social networks and mobile messaging applications (example: WhatsApp) that the stickers and albums of the Panini FIFA World Cup 2022 collection are offered for sale, indicating to the address of New Rita SA (or deceptively similar) as a place of collection of the products, we inform you that our company DOES NOT and has NEVER made such sales.Panini explained.

And followed. “Our only online sales channel is through the website www.zonakids.combeing that in this case the albums and stickers are delivered by post to the addresses indicated by the buyers and must be paid within the site only with electronic payment. Consequently, we alert the public so that no one is caught in their good faith and to prevent fraud from occurring, “the statement concluded.

Failure to deliver the dip bags poses another problem and that is that, as usually happens with those topics that arouse great interest, the cybercriminals take advantage of it the situation to deceive people.

Recently the Tax Unit Specialized in Cybercrime (UFECI) warned of the growth of scams on social networks, WhatsApp groups and platforms such as Mercado Libre or Meta Marketplace that promise stickers and the next World Cup album and never deliver.

World Cup stickers: what are the most common scams

As explained Camilo Gutierrez Amaya, Head of the Research Laboratory of ESET Latin America, there are different types of deception. Scammers take advantage of the scarcity and high demand and offer, through various online sales channels, the album and a package with many stickers. At checkout they ask you to send the money by bank transfer.

However, once they have sent the money, the criminals they stop responding and the album and stickers never arrive.

Like the terms and conditions of Free marketfor instance, sellers are prohibited from passing on contact information buyers so that the transaction takes place outside the platform, the criminals found a way to hide this information inside the photos of the publication.

Other harmful campaign which started circulating in Brazil via WhatsApp tries to make believe that Panini is offering the chance to win the album and 400 stickers. However, it is a deception that tries to get the victim discharged a Google Play app of dubious reputation for scan QR codes.

From the proactive threat detection company they point out that although Google Play has security mechanisms, it is a platform that is usually used to distribute malware for Android, as cybercriminals often manage to ignore them and hide the malware behind all kinds of applications.

On the other hand, the number of apps removed from Google Play for Joker malware distribution was recently detailed, hiding the threat through applications such as QR code readers, PDF scanning tools or photo editors, for example.

The lack of stickers and the show at the Secretariat of Commerce

Almost a month after the sale of the Qatar 2022 World Cup album and stickers began, the shortage of the product in the kiosks has reached the upper echelons of the Ministry of Commerce and brought together representatives of the Newsstand Union (Ukra) and society New Rita.

Panini, the company that owns the rights to the official items and produces the figurines, and the kiosks, whose owners are constantly complaining about the lack of stock of a product that has become feverish, met last week to unblock an unprecedented situation. escalation – surprisingly – to a topic on the state agenda.

The meeting between the representatives of the Edicola Union (UKRA) and the company executives took place at the Secretariat of Commerce, responsible for Tombolini, where the Government tried to mediate the issue.

The advice lasted more than an hour and a half and the result, according to the traders, was positive, at least for the parties. The repercussions of the official attitude, on the other hand, were a cataract of criticism.

It is expected that from the first days of October there will be a sufficient number of stickers and albums to cover the huge demand that has been generated since they have been put on sale.

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