Once scammers have your contact information, they might send you messages or e-mails. You may have heard of Nigerian Princes asking for a loan but that’s not really what current scams look like. In most cases, they promise you money so they can steal from you. Luckily, once you know what to look out for, messsages from scammers are easy to spot.
An unknown number/sender
If you receive a message from a number you do not know, do not reply. Look up the country code. These are the first two or three numbers after the + sign. So for example +351 is the country code for Portugal. Do you know anyone in that country? If the answer is no, block and report the number immediately.
If you received an e-mail, check the sender of the message. If it is a free account, for example from Gmail, and has numbers in it, it’s almost definitely a scammer. Move the e-mail into your spam folder if it isn’t already there or click “report spam”.
The content
Scammers will congratulate you on your lottery win. Or they’ll send you a letter from a person who wants to give you money. But you haven’t bought a lottery ticket and you do not know the “generous” donor. That’s because it’s a scam.
You really want to be careful with “prizes” you supposedly won because these days scammers can fake documents and websites very convincingly. So what you always want to ask yourself is how did they get your contact information in the first place? Did you enter a competition or buy a lottery ticket that asked for your phone number or e-mail? If you didn’t share your info, then it’s a scam.
The asks
Scammers will also ask you to do things, usually share personal information. The first asks will always seem harmless. For example, a scammer might write that they need you to confirm your identity so you can get your “win”. Please send them pictures of your id.
What could they possibly do with blurry pics of your id, right? This: They use your legitimate contact information and your photo to pretend to be you so they can scam other people. Some people will search for a person contacting them to see if they are legit. If they then find profiles, e-mail addresses or even websites that supposedly belong to “you” they are much more likely to trust “you”, aka the scammer who is impersonating you.
The asks will also become bolder with every request. This is a common persuasion technique because once we share information with someone, we automatically trust them more until we end up sharing even sensitive data, like our credit card number. It’s a psychological trick.
So any time someone asks you to share personal information in a messenger app or in your e-mail and you do not know this person, it’s safe to assume that it’s a scam. Don’t bother looking them up.
What to do
Block the number and move the e-mail into your spam folder immediately. If possible, do not engage at all. Don’t bother asking who they are or any other questions. Just block and report. If you engage with them, they can use their persuasion techniques on you.
Scammers will also assume that you are more likely to fall for a scam if you react so you will be contacted pretty soon by a lot more unknown people. If this has already happened, don’t worry. Just keep blocking and reporting every fishy number and move those scammy e-mails into your spam folder.
When you stop reacting, they give up eventually because criminals prefer easy targets. Now that you know what to look out for, that’s not you.