How to Detect Online Scams?

We receive messages and emails of winning lotteries, discount vouchers, and other prizes once or twice a month. However, almost all of them are fake. Those who believe in such messages lose their money instead of winning anything. 

Scammers are arguably the most intelligent and creative people. They find new ways to con people and bag their money. Plus, they don’t believe in any type of discrimination. Hence, they treat everyone equally regardless of race, gender, age, and religion.

People are also very generous as they hand over their hard-earned money to scammers without knowing who they are. You would be amazed to know that, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost more than $8.8 billion in 2022 alone. The situation in the rest of the world is similar as well. 

Online scams have become the biggest threat to people’s money these days. The main issue here is that people must realize whether they are getting scammed. They believe in every call, message, or email from an unknown person. And that’s what creates issues for them.

This article is for you if you want to avoid getting scammed and save your hard-earned money. This article will briefly discuss the best ways to detect and avoid different types of online scams.

How to Detect Online Scams?

Detecting online scams isn’t tricky at all. You only need to pay attention and think with a fresh mind. That’s enough to save your money from all types of scammers. 

However, if you want to know the most practical ways to detect online scams, here they are!

• Learn about Different Types of Scams

Multiple types of scams have emerged in recent days. Every day, you find a new type of scam. As mentioned earlier, scammers are the most creative people. To prevent multiple types of scams, you must know about those scams. That’s the only way to avoid them. Otherwise, you will fall into their trap and lose your money.

Here are the most common types of online scams;

• Phishing scams: In this type of scam, scammers trick people into accessing their valuable data by installing malware on their systems or encouraging them to provide their details themselves.
• Lottery scams: These are common scams where fraudsters let people believe that they have won some kind of prize, and when people contact them for the prize, they trick people into sending them their own money.
• Catfishing: Catfishing is a scam where people steal others’ identities, including their pictures, usernames, and other confidential data, and con others using their names.
• Online shopping scams: All scams related to online shopping fall under this category.
• Charity scams: These are scams where scammers trick people in the name of underprivileged or poor people. After the Earthquake in Turkey and Syria, many scammers made millions through this scam.

• Use the Reverse Image Search Method

Suppose you want to avoid multiple scams, including shopping, dropshipping, catfishing, and even lottery scams, even all the scams where scammers use pictorial data to con people. In that case, image reverse search can help you a lot. 

Photo search tools are developed with modern algorithms to identify input queries and show the results based on similarities. If you ever want to know whether a person or company is real or not, just upload their pictures to a reverse image search facility; the tool will help you know where the same pictures are uploaded on the web. Analyzing the results lets you quickly determine whether pictures are real or copied from elsewhere. So by doing a deep analysis, you will know who is contacting you real or a scam.

• Don’t Trust Every Email

We receive many emails every day. We usually don’t bother to open those emails, knowing they are promotion or scam emails. However, sometimes, we open a few emails, thinking they came from real people. Some of those emails are from scammers. Using those emails, they force people to believe their stories. 

Unfortunately, many people believe in them and fall into their trap. But you must not trust those emails. Instead, you should see them with a sceptical eye and analyze whether they came from real people or not.

• Don’t Download Unknown Software

Many scammers have created software programs. Those software programs work like Trojan Horse. They seem helpful, but in reality, they are malware. Once a user downloads such software programs on their devices, they put their valuable data at risk. 

For instance, hackers can access their bank and social media accounts using such programs. With these programs, hackers can wash people’s bank accounts.

• Beware of Catfishing Scam

Catfishing is one of the easiest ways to con people. Many scammers download data from others’ social media profiles, create fake profiles using their data, contact their friends and family members, and ask for financial assistance. Many don’t bother asking the real person on their mobile phones to send money to the scammers. And the real person doesn’t even know about it. If someone scams you using others’ identities, you must call the real person. That’s how you can identify if it’s a scam attempt.