Watch Out For These Phone Scams

Watch out for these phone scams

- Marissa Laliberte

1 Lucky winner

Congrats! You just won a free vacation—or a million dollars! If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “In a legitimate lottery or sweepstakes, you have to enter the contest somehow,” says Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center in California, USA. “If you ever ‘win’ a contest that you didn’t enter—especially one with a prize worth millions— you’re probably being scammed.”

2 Donation collections

When charities, political parties and lobbyists request donations over the phone, show some healthy scepticism. “Some will be legitimate. Many will not,” says Adam Levin, founder of the US-based global identity- protection and data-risk-services firm CyberScout and author of Swiped. “Risk being rude and say, ‘Send me more information.’” If it’s a cause you care about, do a little online digging to find out whether the caller is the real deal.

3 Tech support