With increased number people now accessing the internet with their mobile phones, the amount of online phone scammers has also gone up considerably. Thousands of scammers are waiting for you to make one wrong move, and they’ll do the rest of work themselves. There are many ways through which these online scammers can convince you to give away your personal information. They might call you and claim to be the customer support of a reputable tech company or your bank and so on. Today, we go through some simple steps that you can take to avoid these notorious phone scams.

• Never pick up unknown calls:

Not picking unknown calls is a general good practice. Always avoid calls from unknown contacts, especially weird looking international numbers and fake service providers. But if you like the services of at online company, then try to conduct some research and read testimonials before contacting them.

• Beware of the fake messages:

    Many phone scammers message you with a number identical to your bank’s number or other important contact. These fake messages ask for your personal or financial information like the pin of your credit card, your address, full name etc.

    In addition to the conventional messages, you might also receive fake emails asking you to click on weird links. This method is called phishing. Once you click on that link, your personal data can be stored on sender’s computer. So, beware of the fake messages and phishing scams!

• Not everyone is a scammer:

While the number of online frauds, fake lottery messages, cold phone calls and phishing scams have increased manifolds lately, not everyone calling you is a scammer. This might be from a legitimate company trying to sell its valuable services to you. So, always try to do a quick online research while you are in the call. This way you can avoid accidentally denying potentially beneficial services and good opportunities.

    To do the research, you can always ask the caller for its full name and reason they called you. Ask for more information if the person claims to be the representative of a company. Then match the given information with online records, this better match.

• Never do wire money transfers:

    There are a zillion ways to transfer money today. Even then, if a seller is trying to convince you for a wired money transfer, then chances are, that it is a scam. Because there is literally no way track on reverse a payment done by wire money transfer. So, avoid it unless you are okay with being scammed.

• Trace the caller:

    One of the most efficient ways to see if a caller or messenger is legitimate is tracking back the contact number. You can always use some effective apps like reverse phone lookup for free to track any calling or messaging number.

Use reverse phone lookup to see if the address a company is providing you is same as the calling or messaging location. If the information is not matching, then is surely is a scam and all you need is staying away from it.