The internet is vast— and, we’re sad to say, so too are the number of scams waiting for careless users. There are many different types of online scams, and they employ all sorts of tricks and techniques. Whether you’re shopping online, chatting in messaging apps, browsing dating, property, or job platforms, or scrolling through social media — cyberscammers are everywhere these days. Read on to learn how these scammers usually operate and how you can protect yourself from online scams with Avira Free Security.
What is an online scam, and how do scammers go about their work?
Online scams — sometimes also called cyberscams, online scamming, or online fraud — refer to any kind of fraud carried out on digital channels. Online scams are a form of cybercrime where fraudsters, referred to as scammers, attempt to obtain their victims’ confidential information, sensitive data, or money.
To achieve this goal, scammers often combine technical methods with social engineering tactics to exploit human weaknesses through targeted deception and manipulation. They spark curiosity, instill fear, make promises, appeal to emotions, or take advantage of situations like unemployment or housing shortages. To do this, scammers assume different roles, posing as a bank employee, relative, or potential employer. The digital world makes this easy for them, offering almost endless possibilities.
These days, scammers are lurking everywhere. They try to deceive unsuspecting users through scam calls, text message or WhatsApp scams, emails or ads, fake websites and fake apps, and popular online platforms.
Online scams — popular tools and techniques
Phishing, pharming, and spoofing are some of the most common methods scammers use to try to obtain personal data such as passwords or bank account details, or to spread malware. These techniques are often not used on their own, but in combination.
With phishing, users receive an email that looks like it comes from a trusted source, such as a bank, a well-known company, or a popular online service. These emails are often surprisingly convincing and usually contain either links to fake websites or attachments that install malware when opened. Text messages can also be sent instead of emails — something known as smishing. If a user clicks the link in an email or text message, they’re tricked into entering confidential data on the fake website.
And to make the fake email or website look completely legitimate, scammers often rely on spoofing. This is where they manipulate the email’s sender address or the website’s URL. An even more deceptive technique is pharming. Here, the user is redirected to a fake website even if they entered the correct address. This happens through background manipulation, such as tampering with the DNS (domain name system) server or the local hosts file. When combined, these techniques make it very hard for the victim to notice they’re being scammed —often until it’s too late.
Online scams hook you with enticing offers
In most cases, scammers use some kind of bait to hook their victims — and these fraudsters are extremely inventive, both in terms of where they commit crimes in the digital world and the techniques they use.
Check out these commonly used hooks:
- Unbeatable deals with online shopping scams
Scammers set up fake shops or fraudulent storefronts on popular online marketplaces, offering heavily discounted products to attract deal‑hunters. If victims fall for it, they receive low-quality goods, counterfeit items, or nothing at all. Learn more here about Etsy scams, eBay scams, and Vinted scams.
In other cases, the scammers’ target is their victims’ credit card or banking details. To get their hands on this information, they create fake shopping platforms or hack legitimate online shops. Formjacking involves injecting malicious code into the payment form fields to capture, extract, and transmit entered card details directly to the scammers.
- Promise of riches with Nigeria scams
Nigeria scams are one of the most well‑known forms of advance‑fee or upfront-payment scam. Scammers promise something desirable — a large inheritance, a cheap apartment, a good job, a lottery win, or high returns — but require an upfront payment first. Once the payment is made, contact stops as the fraudster simply disappears.
There are countless variations of these scams — including the Nigerian prince scam, also called the 419 scam or Nigerian-connection scam. Victims are often contacted by someone posing as a Nigerian aristocrat, wealthy individual, government official, or heir. The scammers promise huge sums of money via email if the recipient helps to move funds out of the country or release frozen assets. They claim to need an upfront payment, such as to cover legal fees, bank charges, taxes, or bribes. Stories about where the money comes from and why the upfront payment is needed are almost always completely absurd, making it all the more unbelievable that this scam actually works from time to time.
- Attractive job offers with job scams
Job scammers post fake job ads on online portals like LinkedIn, XING, or Indeed. They pretend to be reputable recruiters or well-known companies, and sometimes contact their victims via WhatsApp or Telegram, email, or text message. During the supposed online hiring process, victims are asked for sensitive information such as their bank details, ID documents, or even have a live video chat to confirm their identity. Scammers can then commit identity theft — for example, opening a bank account in the victim’s name for criminal purposes.
Other job scams demand upfront payments for recruitment services, training courses, special software, or subscriptions for online tools. Some scams advertise easy work‑from‑home tasks but never pay for the work. Victims are asked to register with a fraudulent platform where fake tasks and fake “earnings” are displayed — but the money never exists.
- Cheap apartments with rental scams
With rental scams, fake real estate ads offer apartments at unusually low rental prices, tricking often desperate renters into paying a deposit before any viewing. That’s because the owner is often “abroad” and will mail the keys after payment. In other versions, scammers rent a holiday apartment, promise it to the prospective tenant after the viewing, and also demand a deposit.
- True love with love/romance/dating scams
With this type of scam, fraudsters use fake profiles on online dating platforms or social networks (catfishing) to build a relationship with their victim and gain their trust. Once they’ve established that trust, scammers pretend to be in an emergency and ask for money — and surprisingly, this often works.
- Big winnings with lottery scams
With this type of scam, fraudsters phone or email their victims, claiming they’ve won a large sum of money. However, before the prize can be paid out — which of course never happens — a “processing fee” or similar needs to be paid. There are also scammers who run fake prize draws on social media platforms in the name of well-known companies, but who only want to harvest entrants’ data.
- Feel-good factor with charity & crowdfunding scams
Here, fraudulent donation appeals are used, often after environmental disasters or in the name of sick children. Willing donors are asked via appeals on social media or by email to transfer money to a supposed charity, usually via fake websites.
Crowdfunding scams work in a similar way. Scammers launch campaigns on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo to convince people to donate money to innovative projects or social initiatives that don’t actually exist.
- High returns with online trading/investment scams
In this scam, fraudsters lure victims with exceptionally high returns, exclusive investment opportunities, and easy access via professional-looking investment platforms. Due to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies as a lucrative investment, crypto scams are on the rise — especially since the crypto market is poorly regulated and many people don’t fully understand the underlying technology.
These fraudulent online platforms are often advertised on trustworthy websites and social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube — sometimes even with supposed glowing endorsements from seemingly enthusiastic celebrities. Scammers pose as experts and email, call, or message interested parties once they’ve registered, using false promises of profits to convince them to deposit money, first in small amounts and then in increasingly larger sums. As soon as investors try to withdraw their funds, access to the account is blocked, the “advisor” disappears — and the money is gone with them too.
Online scams employ fear and terror
Scammers don’t just lure with promises — they also use threats to obtain money or valuable data. They say something bad will happen if the victim doesn’t act quickly enough, pushing people into rushed and poorly considered actions.
Here’s an overview of scams that rely on fear, pressure or supposed emergencies:
- Online banking and PayPal scams
Fraudsters use a wide variety of methods when it comes to online banking and PayPal scams. A common technique is to send fake emails that appear to come from PayPal or a bank. The message might warn about “suspicious activity” or claim the account is about to be or has already been blocked. To prevent or lift this alleged block, users are asked to enter their confidential banking information on a fake website “for verification”.
- Authority scams
In this case, scammers pose as employees of a government agency, such as the tax office or a law enforcement agency, and email victims to obtain money or data. They may claim unpaid taxes or fines are due and threaten legal action or account seizures.
- Debt collection scams
Debt collection scams work in a similar way to authority scams. Here, scammers pose as debt-collection agencies and demand supposedly outstanding payments via email on behalf of a fictitious client. They often threaten late-payment fees, criminal charges, or negative credit entries. People with real debts or who make frequent online purchases are particularly at risk.
- Pop-up scams
This type of scam involves the use of scareware in the form of pop-up messages that trick the user into believing disaster is about to strike and pressure them to act immediately. Often, fake antivirus error messages are used to simulate a problem on their computer. The scammers then offer paid “support services” or try to get users to download a program that later turns out to be malware.
In another version, the pop up displays a telephone number. If the user calls it, the scammer pretends to be a support agent — such as from Microsoft — and tries to persuade the user to grant them remote access to the PC to fix the issue. In reality, this is used to steal personal data, passwords, or banking information.
- Grandparent scam
Here, scammers target elderly people by pretending to be a close relative in distress who needs money for a ticket to get back home, medical bill, medication, or legal fees. Victims are usually contacted by phone, but increasingly also via WhatsApp. On that service, scammers message the victim pretending to be their son or daughter, informing the parent that they’ve got a new phone number — with the chat eventually asking for money. The scammers often claim that since they’ve lost their old phone, they can’t access their banking details and urgently need to make a transfer. Parents are then asked to transfer money to a stranger’s account on their child’s behalf.
- Fake sextortion scams
In this type of sextortion scam, scammers send emails claiming to possess comprising material such as intimate videos or photos of the recipient and threaten to publish them or forward them to family, friends, or employers — unless the victim pays a ransom, usually in cryptocurrency. These scams work really well if the recipient has visited adult websites and fears they may have been secretly recorded because their webcam’s been hacked, as the scammers often claim.
How can I spot scams and unmask scammers?
A healthy degree of skepticism and common sense is the best way to identify online scammers. Whenever anything seems suspicious, it’s best to triple check than leave it to chance. If in doubt, search the web for the sender, subject, and content of a suspicious email or a seemingly unbelievable offer, but add the word “scam”, “fraud”, or “phishing” to your search. You’ll usually have your suspicions confirmed since you’re unlikely to be the first person to encounter a specific scam.
Watch out for these warning signs:
- Time pressure: Scammers often create a false sense of urgency to push people into rash decisions. When time pressure is combined with threats of negative impacts, it’s almost always a scam.
- Unrealistic offers: Whether it’s unbelievably cheap branded items, dream apartments at bargain-basement prices, or jobs where you can earn a fortune for hardly lifting a finger, unrealistic offers are almost always fake.
- Requests for upfront payment: If someone is asking for an upfront fee for a service, ALWAYS be extremely cautious. Legitimate providers or platforms typically only charge after a service is delivered or on the basis of transparent terms.
- Unusual payment methods: Be wary if you’re asked to pay outside of trusted shopping platforms or using payment methods where you can’t easily get your money back. This includes cryptocurrency transactions, cash-transfer services like Western Union or MoneyGram, and peer-to-peer payment apps like Venmo and Cash App.
- Excessive data requests: No legitimate company will email you asking you to provide your login details, banking information, credit card numbers, or other sensitive details.
- Unsolicited contact: Be cautious when strangers contact you out of the blue with an offer on social media or via messaging apps.
What can I do if I’ve been scammed online?
If you’ve fallen victim to a scam, you can take the following steps — depending on the type of scam — to avert or at least minimize any damage.
- Get in touch with the financial services provider: Tell your bank or credit card provider immediately if you realize you’ve sent money to a scammer or approved a payment to one. Ask if they can still stop or reverse the payment — although this all depends on the payment method and how quickly you react. If you suspect that your account or credit card details have been compromised, have the account or card blocked right away to prevent further financial damage.
- Use payment protection: If you were scammed when shopping on an online platform, use the platform’s buyer-protection scheme — if they have one — and contact customer support. Some payment providers like PayPal offer such a scheme, which you can utilize if you’ve been a victim of an online shopping scam.
- Report the scam: It is a crime to commit fraud — and that includes scam people. Keep a detailed record of everything that happened and report it to the authorities. When it comes to reporting phishing emails sent in an online service provider’s name, many allow you to forward them to a dedicated email address.
- Change your passwords: If you suspect that someone has the login details to one of your online accounts, create a new, strong password. And if you have other accounts that use the same password (which, by the way, is never a good idea), change those passwords too.
How can I protect myself from online scams?
Besides generally being cautious, a free all-in-one solution like Avira Free Security can help you strengthen your protection against online scams. It boasts a long list of features to shield you from a host of online scams.
- Keep up to date on common scams: Keep abreast of the latest popular scams. The better informed you are, the harder it is for online scammers to fool you.
- Check websites and apps: When shopping or banking online, make sure you’re on the genuine website — not on some scammer’s fake website or using a counterfeit app.
- Check your emails: Look for common phishing signs in suspicious emails and never just go clicking any links or opening attachments.
- Secure your online accounts: Use strong, unique passwords to protect all your online accounts. A password manager can help you do this, making it a breeze to generate and store complex passwords.
- Use multi-factor authentication: Add an extra layer of protection to your online accounts by turning on two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible.
- Block phishing websites: Avira Browser Safety helps you block unsafe websites and forms as well as malicious downloads and ads.
- Install antivirus protection: The antivirus protection included in Avira Free Security helps block malware such as scareware.
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