10 Most Common Scams To Look Out For

Scams and frauds are on the rise. If you think only old people fall into the traps set by my scammers you are wrong.

Young people are increasingly being targeted by some of these scams.

So today, we will look at some of the most common scams and how you can avoid them to keep yourself safe.

1. Unknown callers

I’m sure everyone has received their fair share of annoying scam calls.

Some of these calls start with the same first 6 digits as your phone number because people are more likely to pick up if they feel some sense of familiarity.

Sometimes it just shows “unknown caller” on the caller ID.

Once you pick it up, there may not be any voice on the other line. The machine or a person will note down that someone picked it up, therefore the phone number is in use.

Scammers will sell this info to other scammers who would attempt to call you and hope that you fall for bigger scams that may involve your money.

For this reason, when scammers call me, I just ignore them. I don’t block the number and I don’t pick it up.

Yes, blocking the number may just reveal that your number is active so it’s best you do nothing.

I’ve had scammers call me eight times every hour from 9 am to 5 pm (I guess they have a typical 9–5) one particular day.

I didn’t do anything. Didn’t hang up, didn’t pick up, didn’t block. And people stop calling! Nah, I’m kidding. They still call but they call a lot less frequently now.

The more inactivity you show, the more your number gets pushed down the list of priority calls and the fewer scam calls you’d receive.

You can block every scam call but trust me, they’d just call even more. I’ve tried that.

2. Sending money to the wrong person

There are several apps out there that allow people to send money via phone number or email.

Scammers may send you money by “accident” and request you to return it to them. While you are issuing you a refund, the scammers would open a ticket requesting their money be retrieved from your account.

The scammers would then quickly delete their account so you’d essentially be losing money.

It’s best to do nothing and let the specialized personnel handle the case.

3. Impersonating another

With the rise of online influencers, we also see a lot more cases of impersonation. Scammers would impersonate people with influence to deceit and hopefully part people from their hard-earned cash.

One example is scammers pretending to be someone famous and asking their followers for money because they are in a difficult spot (ex. maybe they are stuck in a foreign country and their wallets are lost) and promise to return the money.

This is one of the most easily recognizable scams as the scammers typically have odd usernames and blurry profile pictures.

For this reason, I’m also quite hesitant to post pictures of myself online. It’s not just the influencers getting targeted. Random civilians may also have their pictures stolen and used to lure unsuspecting people.

4. Fishy emails

Old people make up most of the victims of email scams. Upon receiving the emails, they may fail to check the sender’s email address to verify its authenticity.

For instance, hello@amazon.com would seem more legit than hello@amazom.com

Old people may not be as careful when interpreting the validity of the senders albeit it is often very easy to spot these blatant scamming attempts.

Don’t click on any suspicious links in the emails as it may take you to the scammer’s website where they can steal personal information such as bank details from you.

5. Fake gurus

This is another type of scam that has become quite prevalent in recent years.

You may have seen YouTube videos floating around of people showing their supercars in their big expensive houses talking about how you can do it too if you go through their courses.

These gurus make it seem like they made it but in reality, a lot of them simply rent an expensive house and expensive cars by the hour to create an illusion of wealth, lure the gullible to sign up for their training, and then give generic advice in their courses.

They make sure to state that you are the only person responsible for your financial falling and the only person who can do anything about it, effectively removing themselves from any blames that one may assign to them for the lack of significant results after completing their training.

To most of us, it may seem like obvious scams but they only need a few people out of the millions they have shown the videos to take the bait before they make it big.

Many of them might have started out without any of the wealth they claimed to possess but that deceit may soon turn into reality within a few short years when enough people fall into their funnel.

6. Fake training

This point seems similar to the point above but there are many different types of fake training.

One form of fake training is where you receive actual training however, the knowledge is useless and overly generic. These fake training would typically have another up-sell where they offer another course/training package for you to go through.

Many gurus would in this way develop a cult-like following of people who are too embarrassed and too involved to quit mid-way through.

The only way to convince themselves that they aren’t fools is to carry on with the training they spent thousands to obtain.

Then, there are training/webinars/courses that offer viable knowledge that can transform your life and upon creating an account, you’d never hear from them again.

They may disappear with your money or they may sell the personal details you provided to third parties.

A lot of people use the same emails and password on every account for convenience’s sake which gives scammers the perfect opportunity to access your other more valuable accounts.

This may include Amazon.com where your address and bank details are present.

7. Accounts breached

Imagine you receive a text that your bank account has been breached and you need to do something urgent to secure your accounts and savings.

I guess to a lot of people, we have been so accustomed to such scams that we’d ignore them but there would be at least a few people out of a million who would be too credulous to double-check the sender and not click on the link shown.

Doesn’t matter where you got the link from, text, emails, phone, etc, it’s best to log in at the source instead of clicking on any suspicious links.

8. Outstanding payments

There have been cases of people sending bills to small and large companies and the people responsible for paying the due fees may be too careless to double-check every detail before sending the money over.

If you own a business, you need to be particularly careful of any mysterious bills.

Before you make the payment, it’s best to make a few phone calls and check a few papers to make sure the bill is just and fair.

9. Crypto/NFT “ hype”

This kind of scam most often affects young people today as they jump on the crypto/NFT hype.

Note, the following isn’t financial advice:

Yes, you can indeed make money from crypto and NFTs but there are a lot of risks.

Meme coins such as Dodge and SHIB have made a lot of people rich and a lot of people poor.

You never want to be the last group of investors to sell your coins because the only way for anybody to profit from the coins is to convince others to join in and sell the coins before the majority sell.

Once major shareholders begin to sell, the price of the coins would drop and anyone who bought in at a higher price than they are currently valued at would be losing out.

At its hype, people often toss in a few hundred and make a quick few bucks within a week or a month.

It’s only when you are too greedy and hold the coins for too long that you lose out.

And the thing is, no one knows when the valuation would drop dramatically.

I’m not telling you to invest in meme coins. Meme coins are not stable investments, they are mere gambles so do your own research to come to your own conclusion.

NFT on the other hand, 99% of which will cease to obtain any value within a few years most often within a few months.

Just like crypto, there certainly have been millionaires made due to NFTs but there have also been a lot of people made poorer due to NFTs.

Scammers would often use their influence to encourage more investors to pile in and once the valuation of the said crypto or NFT is up, them being the major shareholder would cash out leaving everyone else stranded with a bunch of useless digital codes that they can’t convert to fiat currency without incurring a loss.

10. Fake jobs

It’s not uncommon to see jobs asking for your social insurance number or your other personal details such as your name, address, phone number, bank details, passport, driver’s license, etc.

However, with the rise in fake jobs, one may find themselves giving away information they should never have in the first place.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who have applied to many jobs, been through multiple rounds of interviews, been rejected multiple times, and then finally been offered a job.

Most jobs have a limited amount of time before they open the spots to someone else. After all, they got a role to fill so many people upon being offered a job would work fast to secure the title by sending over everything fast without double-checking.

Scammers can use the details you provided to open up bank accounts, secure loans, and ruin your credit score. This would, of course, procure a barrier at times of property obtainment.

You’d essentially run into trouble getting your mortgage loan approved because your credit score is not good.

Final thoughts

Scammers are everywhere and they are playing new tricks every year. As a hard-working individual, I hope you stay safe out there!