I have noticed an increasing amount of people contacting me about thieves trying to scam them. Whether it be money, assets or personal information, scammers are constantly tying to trick marks (the intended victim) out of something important to them. So I am writing this to provide tips to help prevent scams.
A small post would be difficult to encompass all of the techniques scammers use, but there are some precautions you can use to help protect yourself.
First of all, try to make sure you know who your talking to. If you are receiving a phone call, email, or text, and it’s not from a known number or source, consider ending the communication and contact the person they are claiming to be under a trusted method and tell them about the contact to see if it was indeed them trying to reach out to you. Scammers like to mimic logos and methods used by major companies and banks to help them appear legitimate. They also like to work out of fear. If a message is telling you that a service or benefit has been canceled, or you’re in danger of breaking any laws and requires you to take an action, it very well could be a scam. Try to end to communication and use a trusted source you have used in the past to find out if the message is real, especially before giving out ANY information. A common trick is to ask you to verify information such as an address or phone number. If they are contacting you, this is very suspicious, do not verify this until you have established a trusted line of communication.
There are many other methods of protecting yourself. I recommend that you take some time to do some research online and stay up to date as the methods used can change.