Did you get a friend request from someone you do not know?
Did someone ask you for a small down payment to send you a package that contains a precious gift?
Perhaps someone (usually a pretty girl) offered you an investment opportunity of a life time.
Worst still, did you get a call from your bank asking you to send them an OTP that just arrived on your phone? Perhaps because they are doing some testing on their servers?

Before you give away your money, investigate thoroughly the scheme and the person behind it.

THE SCHEME

1. If they are sending you a precious gift, why can’t they afford posting or customs?
2. If you do pay customs, pay directly to Indian Customs not to them. If you are paying for courier service, pay to a trusted courier service direclty.
3. If they ask for a loan, remember that the chances are you will never get it back and the person is not the person you think they are.
4. If the scheme sounds too good, it probably is. Please talk about it to some people who are good advisors. Make your choices but be fully aware of the risks involved
5. If you are buying a cheap product, check for independent reviews of the product and the seller and the platform. I know shopify is a META product, but I did not know that its just a template to set up a shop. So be careful. Look for independent reviews that could not be influenced by the scammer
6. Only make payments to official business accounts after verifying the business.
7. Finally pay by credit card to buy things. If things do not work out you can ask for a charge back. Recently a national airline took my money but would not offer me the service they promised. It was a cheap ticket buy a NATIONAL AIRLINE. I have complained to my credit card company and they are working on it.
8. Check URLS carefully. If your browswer shows wwww.thisisfake.com/doir or www.doir.thisisfake.com you can be sure that the website is NOT from Chrstian Doir.
9. If you have been ignoring security messages from your bank… do not share your otp or bank login password with anyone if you have anything worth stealing. Its ok to share bank account details, after all that’s how people send you money these days.
10. Try sending the firm a low value courier or post to verify their physical address.

THE PERSON
Before you trust anyone with your personal information (things that they cannot get off the net) verify that the person is who he or she says he is. You can say your real name and phone number, especially if its published on the internet… perhaps even your address. You can share your public photos, but always be very careful to share any information or images that you would not publish on a public forum

1. Check profile. If a person has a new profile and no posts except some repeated stuff that is used to puff it up, that perrson is suspicious. If you have common friends, reach out to them and ask if they know this person
2. Background check. When a person says he/she is working at a particular company, check if that person is listed on their official website. Or at the very least, ensure the person knows enough of whats going on in the company.
3. Photos. Assume all photos are fake, especially in the days of AI and Deep Fakes. I sometimes ask for specific photos like send me a wink or a photo of you touching your left eyebrow with your right hand…they too can be faked but its harder. Remember the kidnapper’s method of taking a photo of the victim holding today’s newspaper? Nothing a photoshop cannot fix
4. At the very least please talk to the person on phone / preferably a video call before you decide to trust the person, even his or her gender.
5. Compromising photos. Recently I had a guy who transplanted my head onto a Porn clip and asked me for 25000 rupees to stop him from sending it to all my FB friends. I said I will pay him IF HE WOULD send it to them and send me a copy, I have always wanted to star in a porn film. Even normal photos can be misused. Some people never share their pictures in public, but that is no garuntee either.
6. Check friends. If he says that he studied in a particular school, does he have friends from that school?
7. DO NOT be rushed. Almost all scammers create a sense of urgency to make you short circuit rational analysis
8. Ghosting. You have a friend and suddenly he disappeared. Did something bad happen to him? Is he just tired of you? Or is he busy? Such uncertainities are part of life. If a person clearly does not want to be found, its best not to stalk the person.
   10: Even when the person is who he says he is, remember he may change his mind later. Porn sites have a whole section called Revenge Porn, its filled with jilted lovers uploading intimate moments they shared. In many ways this is a risk that cannot be avoided. The biggest safeguard is …. nobdoy knows you or cares enough to sift through tons of content to find fake porn videos of you. Sadly, yuu can never bring personal risk levels to ZERO whatever you do.