How to tell a fake message
Almost every scam has the same shape. Once you see the shape, you stop falling for it.
The shape
A message that wants something from you in a hurry is the whole trick. Real organisations do not need an answer in the next ten minutes.
Look for these together — one alone may be innocent, two or three is not:
- Urgency. Your account will close. The payment failed. Act today.
- A link to sign in. Especially one you did not ask for.
- An unexpected request, even from a name you know.
- A slightly wrong address. Look at the part just before the first single slash — that is the real sender.
The one habit worth having
Never sign in through a link somebody sent you. Open the app, or type the address yourself. That single habit defeats most of this, because the link is the whole attack.
Names that are nearly right
A common trick is a name that reads correctly at a glance:
- extra or missing letters
- a hyphen where there was none
- a different ending —
.cominstead of the real one - letters from another alphabet that look identical
If a message matters, check the name character by character. Read it aloud. Your eyes fill in what they expect; your voice does not.
When somebody you know asks for money
Voices and accounts can both be faked. If a family member or a colleague asks for money in a message, call them on the number you already have and ask. Not the number in the message.
Nobody legitimate will ever be upset that you checked. Anyone who is upset that you checked has told you what they are.