How to find and guard the wrong number of scams

Most often, when certain kind of friendships or even romantic connections are established, they are asked for money. Maybe your new contacts will get a bit of a financial trouble and need a quick loan. Or maybe they’ve found a great investment opportunity for you, but they need to act very quickly to take advantage of it.

How to find and respond to the wrong number of scams

Do not respond to messages and block senders.David Neild

First and foremost, you need to be looking for any kind of unexpected contacts through a messaging app. You may think it’s easy to find, but the con artists (and the AI they use) are very good at compelling sounds. They may provide photos and videos that will help them prove they are who they say.

Remember that the people you communicate with may have done your homework. They may claim you are a friend of someone you actually know, or you may be part of an organization you volunteered for. You definitely need to reconfirm these claims.

Ideally, don’t respond at all. This is because it marks you for future fraud attacks. If you think your message is authentic, do as many checks as possible before replying. For example, if it relates to what’s going on at work, check it out with your colleagues.

Once captured in the first message, it becomes easier to spot fraud as the exchange progresses. The bots and people on the other side of the conversation will likely try to join the chat by asking questions or sharing photos or videos. Then there are some sort of attempts to grab money and data. As the FBI warns.

Stop replying whenever you find yourself targeted by a scammer. In the US, you can Forwards the message to 7726 Report them as fraud. You can also block future messages from numbers. In Google Messages on Android, tap on the three dots (top right of chat). Block spam and report it. In your iPhone message, tap on the top header of the chat, then tap. information and Block caller.