- Trustgh Flags More Than 6,000 Suspected Scam Numbers as Tiktok Emerges Top Fraud Channel
Ghana’s digital fraud landscape is becoming more sophisticated and more deeply embedded in social-media and mobile-payment channels, with more than 6,000 telephone numbers now linked to suspected fraudulent activity, according to scam verification and reporting platform TrustGH.
The platform said the numbers were identified through community reporting and open-source intelligence investigations conducted by its team of certified cybersecurity professionals, pointing to a widening threat environment in which fraudsters increasingly exploit social media, messaging applications, business directories, telecommunications channels and fake websites to target individuals and businesses.
The most striking finding is the role of TikTok. TrustGH said approximately 50.00% of reported scam numbers in its database are linked to TikTok, making the platform the largest identified source of reported scam activity captured by its system.
SMS and WhatsApp also account for a significant share of cases, while other indicators have been traced to Facebook, Google Business Profiles, telephone calls and fraudulent websites.
The finding highlights a broader shift in the nature of fraud. Many scams no longer begin with a suspicious phone call from an unknown number. They increasingly start with apparently legitimate social-media content, business listings, advertisements or profiles designed to build trust before victims are moved onto other channels.
TrustGH’s investigations suggest that social engineering rather than highly sophisticated technical hacking remains at the centre of many of these schemes.
Fraudsters impersonate bank officials, government representatives, company executives, police officers, financial agents, recruitment officers and legitimate business owners in order to gain credibility and convince victims to transfer money or surrender sensitive information. That makes human trust itself one of the most important vulnerabilities in Ghana’s digital economy.
An attacker does not necessarily need to compromise a device or breach a bank’s technical infrastructure if a victim can be persuaded to voluntarily provide a one-time password, Mobile Money credential or other authentication information.
Once trust is established, victims may be pressured into making payments, disclosing OTPs or providing information capable of facilitating account takeover. The implications are particularly serious for Ghana because Mobile Money sits at the centre of everyday commerce.
TrustGH said more than 90.00% of reported scam cases it analysed involved attempts either to obtain Mobile Money payments or gain unauthorised access to victims’ Mobile Money accounts.
As Mobile Money has become one of the most widely used payment mechanisms in Ghana, it has also become an obvious target for criminals seeking rapid and relatively frictionless access to funds.
TrustGH identified recurring threat categories including Mobile Money fraud, financial impersonation, fake online sellers, fraudulent Google Business Profiles, fake recruitment schemes, prize and lottery scams, social-media fraud, suspicious callers and phishing-related account takeover attempts.
The use of fake business profiles is another growing concern. TrustGH said fraudsters are increasingly creating fraudulent social-media accounts, advertisements and Google Business Profiles that closely imitate genuine companies.
These profiles may reproduce legitimate business names, logos, locations and other publicly available information to create an appearance of authenticity. That tactic creates a particularly difficult challenge for consumers.
A fraudulent business page can look almost indistinguishable from the real one, especially when it uses the same branding, physical address or product images. The result is a form of digital identity theft in which criminals borrow the reputation of legitimate companies to make their own scams more convincing.
For businesses, the reputational risk can be substantial. A company may suffer damage to its brand even when it had no involvement in the fraud, because customers associate the scam with the name or identity that was impersonated.
TikTok’s prominence in TrustGH’s database is therefore notable not simply because of the volume of reported scam numbers, but because of the role social media can play at the beginning of what becomes a multi-platform fraud chain.
TrustGH said threat actors can use social platforms to establish fake identities, advertise fraudulent products or services and reach large numbers of potential victims.
Once initial contact is established, the conversation may shift to WhatsApp, SMS or telephone calls, where more direct social-engineering techniques are deployed to complete the scam.
That means a single fraud attempt may pass through several digital ecosystems before money changes hands.
A victim might first encounter a fake advertisement on TikTok, move to WhatsApp to discuss a purchase, receive payment instructions through SMS and then make a Mobile Money transfer.
For regulators and law-enforcement agencies, that fragmented pathway complicates detection. The relevant evidence may be spread across multiple companies, platforms and telecommunications networks, each with different systems for reporting suspicious activity.
TrustGH said it works closely with the Cyber Security Authority and the Cyber Crime Unit of the Ghana Police Service to combat scam activity and support investigations involving reported numbers. The platform also allows members of the public to verify and report suspicious telephone numbers.
But the scale of the numbers already identified suggests prevention will require more than a reporting database. The wider policy challenge is how Ghana protects an increasingly digital economy without undermining the convenience and accessibility that made mobile and social platforms so valuable in the first place.
- Social-media platforms have become marketplaces.
- Messaging applications function as customer-service channels.
- Mobile Money is deeply integrated into daily transactions.
- Google Business Profiles help consumers locate companies.
- Each of those tools has legitimate economic value.
The same features that make them useful, however, can be exploited by fraudsters. A social platform gives businesses access to large audiences; it also gives criminals access to the same audience.
Mobile Money allows instant payments; it can also make fraudulent transfers happen before a victim has time to reconsider.
Publicly available business information improves search and transparency; it can also provide fraudsters with the material needed to imitate legitimate companies. The problem is therefore not simply technological.
As Ghana’s economy becomes more digitised, confidence in online commerce will increasingly depend on whether consumers can determine who is genuine, which payment request is legitimate and whether the business identity they are interacting with actually belongs to the company it claims to represent.
The TrustGH figures suggest that this distinction is becoming harder. More than 6,000 suspected scam numbers represent thousands of potential entry points through which fraudsters can approach consumers.
And with roughly half linked to TikTok and more than 90.00% of analysed cases targeting Mobile Money payments or accounts, the threat is concentrating around some of Ghana’s fastest-growing digital behaviours.
That makes public awareness important, but it also raises questions for platforms, telecommunications operators, financial institutions and regulators.
Fraud prevention increasingly requires rapid sharing of intelligence about suspicious numbers, fake profiles, payment accounts and impersonated businesses.
Platforms also face pressure to improve verification and remove fraudulent identities quickly enough to prevent them from repeatedly reaching new victims.
Financial institutions and Mobile Money operators, meanwhile, need systems capable of identifying unusual transaction patterns without making legitimate payments unnecessarily difficult. The challenge is to create enough friction to stop fraud without creating so much friction that digital commerce itself becomes inconvenient.
TrustGH’s findings therefore point to a broader policy concern. Ghana’s digital transformation has created enormous opportunities for commerce, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship.
But as legitimate economic activity migrates online, criminal activity is migrating with it. The next stage of digitalisation will therefore depend not only on expanding access, but on building stronger mechanisms for verification, reporting and enforcement.
TrustGH’s database provides one warning signal. The more significant message is that Ghana’s fraud problem is no longer confined to isolated calls from unknown numbers.
It is becoming a multi-channel ecosystem that can begin on TikTok, borrow the identity of a real business, move through WhatsApp and end with money disappearing from a Mobile Money wallet. That is the threat Ghana’s cybersecurity and financial systems must increasingly be designed to confront.
