I recently binge listened to the podcast The Perfect Scam, which, as the name suggests, covers various scams and offers tips on how to avoid them. The podcast is lucky to have insight from Frank Abagnale as the co-host - yes Frank Abagnale who was portrayed by Leonardo Dicaprio in the brilliant 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can. Frank now works for the FBI, but offers solic advice for avoiding scams.

Stop and verify

This is probably the best piece of advice that Frank offers, and he seems to reiterate this in most episodes. The idea is that if someone rings you out of the blue, saying they are from some important company or government agency and that you owe money, the first thing you should do is to stop, and verify. This means asking them for a reference number/person and then saying you will call them back. If its a scam and you ring them back (looking for the official number online) you will be told no such reference exists. These scammers often push the urgency and the fact you may lose alot of money to keep you on the line, but always remember to stop and verify.

This same concept could be applied to Steem - with so many different projects going on here it is sometimes hard to keep up. The best thing to do before joining a new Dapp or upvote service is to do all of the research you can - talk to people on Discord, and read all of the comments. Again stop and verify - when they ask you for your credentials - always make sure it is through Steemconnect (check very carefully because these scammers are getting smarter).

Be careful what information you share on social media

In the last few years scammers have started lurking on social media and using the oversharing of information to their advantage. People often share their whole lives on social media - there names, date of birth, where they live, their travel plans and much, much more. Scammers can use this information to pretend to be you in different ways to scam you out of your hard earned money.

The best advice is to be very vigilant of the privacy policy of the various social media websites and update your information accordingly. I try keep everything as private as possible so people cant find alot out about me. Never share information such as travel plans, as people have actually had their houses robbed as a result of this.

Dont give out personal details to incoming calls/emails

This seems like common sense but is one that many people fall victim of. Imagine that the 'IRS' rings and says you owe money in back taxes - they then proceed to ask for all of your personal details to 'confirm your identity'- but if they rang you shouldn't they already have all of this information? This is just the old fashion typical 'phishing scam'. Again as I mentioned above the best thing to do is to 'stop and verify'. Hang up the phone and call back the company/agency the person says they are from.

Conclusion

The Perfect Scam is a podcast which focusses on the many different scams going on around the world the ways in which consumers can avoid becoming victims. The expert advice from Frank Abagnale really helps to give some validity to the advice.

If you are interested in scams, I also recommend the podcast 'Reply All' especially episode 102 called long distance where the host receives a call from a scammer and investigates - the story really takes some wild twists and turns.

Let me know in the comments if you have any other advice to avoid being scammed!