With the development of the Internet came a new type of fraud. When nowadays almost everyone around the world has access to the internet, scams are also popping up everywhere. Because of that, it is crucial to stay safe in the online world and not get scammed of any of our data, money, information, computer files, etc.
With these simple steps, you will be able to recognize scams. You can never be 100% sure. New types of scams are coming out all the time and the ingenuity of scammers knows no bounds. But in principle, you can never be too careful and too suspicious.
1. If something seems so good to be true it probably is
When you come across a thing like that, an example:
If you send us a bitcoin to our wallet: xyzabc we will send you twice as much back ASAP.
Just recently there was a scam just like the one I described in the example. The scammers pretended to be Elon Musk and just promised to send back double your deposit right away. A lot of people fell for it because Musk is one of the richest people in the world, so maybe he just wanted to be generous. Nope — SCAM.
I’m not saying that everything that sounds too good to be true is a scam. But you have to be very, very careful with this kind of thing. And maybe use the second point in extra detail.
2. Do proper a research
If you are already ignoring the offer on principle because it sounds too good to be true, do proper, thorough research.
If your suspicion comes from a direct offer, find out as much as you can about the sender or the company making the offer. If this is a more global scam, and more people have received this fraudulent offer, I’m sure there will already be some text about it on the internet.
In case you are judging the credibility of internet service, some sites can help you.
- Trustpilot.com
- Foxyrating.com
- Google reviews
These are at least the ones I use all the time. Read all the reviews you can to get the full picture of the service. Even if you see 10 positive reviews that don’t mean that the service is genuine — shady services use to pay for fake reviews. Read all of them and continue to my next point.
3. Reverse search
This step can be freely swapped with the second one.
If you have gone through both of the previous two points and you are still not completely sure do a reverse google search. Sear on google for whatever you are offered. Chances are that you mind find plenty of similar or the same cases for the thing you are experiencing.
4. Have a proper antivirus
A really good antivirus can warn you about a lot of things. Just don’t be afraid to pay for some antivirus. A free antivirus will never give you that much protection. I use Trend Micro Maximum Security. Which, among other things, blocks fraudulent sites — I have been using several PTC sites for a long time, which often contain fraudulent sites. My antivirus automatically blocks the site and pops up a little window like this:
Which of course cant work 100% times, but usually blocks everything bad.
5. Share
If God forbid, you’ve fallen for a scam, share it. Share your experience on similar sites I advised in the second point. You will prevent hundreds of others from falling for the same scam.
And there’s no shame in getting caught. It can happen to any of us, thanks to the endless inventiveness of scammers.
6. Learn your lesson
In the Czech Republic we say: Dvakrat do stejne reky nevstoupis. In translation: You won’t step into the same river twice. What that means is, that next time you will encounter something like this you will be wiser and won’t fall for it for the second time.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever been scammed. And I’ll tell you about my experience with one type of scam.
My dear mom once ran into this cute guy while online dating. A quick description of him:
Veteran, a really, really disgustingly rich — but unfortunately his money is held by the US military since he is now somewhere else — Remember this, it will be important later.
They started texting. Since he is logically from the US, he has an excuse for why his Czech is like from a translator. But why his English is also very can not be explained.
Everything is going beautifully for the first week. He writes a lot of kind words. He promises how soon he will come — it was just before Christmas about two years ago, how he will spend the holidays with us. But suddenly a disaster! His son, who is currently on the other side of the world, got sick and he urgently needs money for his treatment. Yep, he is a millionaire but do you remember… his money is held by the US military.
They’ve got it so sophisticated that even my mom got a realistic-looking medical report. But luckily, at this point, I stepped in. Just a quick google reverse search — see even I used my method two years ago — and find the exact same photos on Instagram. Not an American soldier, but a German private doctor. Mom said she wouldn’t send him any money but at that moment I wasn’t so sure. Because Mom was starting to care about him a lot. She ended up texting the doctor on Instagram saying someone was impersonating him. He thanked her, saying it wasn’t the first time he heard about this.
Scammers tend to pick the same people to impersonate over and over again — if you look online, you’ll find Instagram profiles that even have in their bio — this is the only real profile of me and I don’t use any dating sites.
By the way, there’s even a warning about this on the official US Army website. That often in this “Romance scam” as it’s officially called, they impersonate former US Army soldiers.
