There are dozens of ways to get scammed online. Here are some of the most common methods used by fraudsters and foolproof ways to protect yourself from any kind of scam.
1. Never trust the initiator
If someone initiates the contact with you, they obviously want something from you. It’s either money, your information or services they want to sell. Ultimately, they want to benefit from you. Therefore, never give any money, information or anything else to a person who has contacted you online or via any other channels, unless you have contacted them first and expect them to revert back.
2. Paying money if you are the advertiser
When you have advertised something, either for buying or selling, it’s natural that people will contact in response. But how do you know who’s genuine and who’s a scammer?
- If you are selling any items privately, never part with your items until you have received the price promised.
- When buying something, if you are personally going to collect it, physically inspect the item and then pay during the pickup, it should be like a ransom exchange.
- If the seller has to ship it, always buy from a reliable platform which holds the seller’s money until the customer has received the item. Established platforms also have return policies to safeguard buyers and sellers.
3. Sharing information
Never share any sensitive information like bank details, social security identifier, address, etc, with online strangers. What good can ever happen with strangers knowing your private information?
- Don’t fill up forms on unknown or untrusted websites.
- Don’t share your personal details over phone, emails or messages.
- Don’t share OTPs with anyone ever, OTPs are meant for the customer’s consumption alone, service providers never need OTPs from customers.
4. Social engineering tricks
Fraudsters can pretend to call as bankers and caution that your funds are frozen, or bank account is blocked. They can also contact via emails or messages, asking you to update your information to unblock accounts. No banks ever do this, so never click any links or download any attachments received via emails and messages. This form of fraud is known as phishing.
Other forms of social engineering can include blackmail and threatening. For eg, some scammers call up and pretend to be cops or government authorities, claiming that your name or number has been linked with criminal activities and try to extort money. Always know that authorities will never contact over phone.
5. Get rich quick offers
Never fall for any get rich quickly or earn quick cash offers. Literally nobody has ever got rich quickly without any effort. Many scammers will send out work from home job offers which involves doing trivial tasks online or via phone. Initially they might even pay you once or twice to earn your trust. Soon you’ll be asked to invest a small amount of money to unlock better paying tasks. If you have to pay money to earn money, that’s an outright scam.
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