So you receive a phone call from an unknown number and answer. You realise that you are talking to a scammer and hang up. Or you receive a message from a new number, telling you all about the lottery you won without even buying a ticket. Another scammer. But how did they get your phone number or e-mail in the first place?
They got your information from others
When scammers manage to steal from other people, they take money but also their entire contact list. These lists of phone numbers, e-mails and possibly even physical addresses are then used for the next wave of scams or sold or shared with other scammers.
They might have bought a list with your data from Hackers, people who break into systems. When you read about data leaks from big corporations this usually means that either a hacker broke into their system to steal their data or the system had a flaw someone exploited to get in.
They got it from you
If you have a website and your e-mail address is on it, a program searching for e-mail addresses might have found it. These programs compile lists which in turn are used by scammers to contact you.
You might have given people your details because you thought they were running a genuine contest. Fake contests collecting your details are most common online but there are still people who try to get your information in person.
Now that they have it…
Once you are on a list, scammers will contact you. If they have your phone number they’ll call or send a message. Do not respond. Do not even answer the phone. Look up the country code of the number that tried to contact you. The country code is the first two or three digits after the + sign, so +351 is the code for Portugal. If you don’t know anyone in that country, it’s a scammer. Never answer the phone if the number shows as private. That’s always fishy.
Now that you know the number is from a scammer, block it. If it was sent with a messenger app, like WhatsApp, block and report it. If you received an e-mail move it into your spam folder. This tells your e-mail provider that the sender is not trustworthy and will protect you and other people in future.
Never engage. This is really important because once you answer, they can try to manipulate you. It also tells them that you might be more likely to fall for a scam so they will contact you again from different numbers.
If you have already exchanged messages, don’t worry too much about it. Just block the number now and do not respond to new unknown numbers. After a while, they move on. Scammers, like most criminals, focus on easy targets. And that’s not you.