Avoiding Scams: Use These Helpful Tips To Safeguard Yourself

Scammers have many tricks to scam you, on here I have listed many of them so you can know when you are about to get scammed.

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Table Of Contents
  1. Would this company call me?
  2. Why am I being made so stressed about this?
  3. Why does this website look different?
  4. Don’t search for websites on Google
  5. Sign-in or Google Form?

Would this company call me?

A very common scam is the Amazon one that involves you getting a scam call from a scammer impersonating Amazon claiming there is a charge on your Amazon account. One of the main reasons this would stick to me is if there was an unknown charge on my Amazon account, Amazon probably wouldn't call me. They would send you an email, and your bank would also likely notify you of a large unknown charge.

Why am I being made so stressed about this?

Scammers will present a very large issue to someone all at once and may use time pressure to make a person very worried about it to make them make a nervous decision in the moment of giving their info to the scammer.

Why does this website look different?

Usually, when scammers create fake websites, they don’t do a very good job of recreating them. That causes the site to look different, sometimes people notice the differences, but still, believe it is the real site. So, if you are ever on a site and it looks suspiciously different, you should not submit any personal info to it, or take any information on it seriously.

Comparison of Amazon websites; left screen depicts a scam Amazon website, while the right screen showcases the authentic Amazon website.
A Fake Amazon Concept I Created Compared to the Real Website

Don’t search for websites on Google

A common mistake that many people make is searching for a website on Google. This means they would be on google.com, then they search the website name in the Google Search section. You should avoid doing this because scammers can make their fake websites show up in Google Search to trick people into believing the site is real, and you are not likely to find the correct site if is a specific name.

Sign-in or Google Form?

Screenshots showing PNC online banking log ins, with an example of a scam sign-in on the left
A Fake PNC Bank Sign-In I Created Compared to the Real Sign-In

A somewhat common trick involves scammers doing something (such as emailing you) asking you to sign in to a product or service. They will provide a link to a Google Form to have you sign in the “product/service”. However, they are just taking your information (such as your username and password) to get into the real service pretending to be you. On a Google Form, the website address (the text at the top with the site name) will be something like forms.gle, and the form will have the text “Google Forms” at the bottom.


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