How to avoid scammers online

There are many ways to avoid online scammers. Here are some tips and advice on how to stay safe. Never give out personal information. Never send money to someone you don't know.

Check their website address and make sure it's correct before you enter any information or download anything from them. Make sure the site is secure, with a padlock icon in the address bar or an "https" instead of an "http" at the start of the address.

Follow these tips to avoid online scammers.

Be wary of unsolicited emails, texts and phone calls. Scammers can try to trick you into sharing confidential information by impersonating someone you trust or by directly contacting you.

Don't click on links in email messages from unknown senders. Call the organization to verify that the email is legitimate before responding. Don't respond to text messages or voice mail messages that ask for personal information or passwords. If a company needs your account information, it will request it from you directly.

Don't share personal information on social media platforms without verifying the identity of the person with whom you're communicating. If someone asks for your password or other information, don't respond and immediately report the incident to us at info@scambusters.org

Scam artists are everywhere, and they're always looking for a way to separate you from your money. The Internet makes it easy for con artists to reach a global audience, so they're turning to the Web in increasing numbers.

The good news is that there are ways you can avoid falling victim to online scams. The following tips will help you stay safe while using the Internet:

Don't click on links in emails or social media messages from people you don't know. These can be malicious links designed to steal your personal information or install malware on your computer.

Beware of ads that claim you've won something — especially if the prize is too good to be true (like free cars or cash). These prizes are often offered by scammers trying to trick people into sharing personal information or downloading spyware onto their computers.

Never give out personal information such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers or Social Security numbers through email or over the phone unless you know who you're talking with and why they need it — even if they say it's a legitimate company requesting it. Also be careful about entering online contests; some are legitimate while others are scams designed to collect your contact information so they can sell it to other companies

You've heard the warnings about Internet scams and identity theft. But how do you know when someone is trying to scam you? Here are some of the most common types of online scams:

Phishing scams: Email that appears to come from a legitimate company (such as eBay, PayPal or your bank) asking for your personal information. The email may contain a link to a fake website that looks like the real thing. This type of scam is called phishing because it involves sending out emails with links in them that are designed to lure people into providing personal information on fake websites that look like real ones.

Spoofing: An email address or web address that looks like it comes from a legitimate company but isn't. That could be an email address that ends with something other than @gmail.com or @yahoo.com (these two domains are highly trusted and rarely spoofed). Or it could be an email address that looks like @eBay-inc.com but actually ends with something else like @ebay-inc-info or @ebay-inc-jobs or @ebay-inc-careers, which makes it look more official than it really is.