Online scams change their costumes every year, but the plot stays the same: gain trust, create urgency, ask for money or access. Once you know the plot, the costume stops working.
The scams you are most likely to meet
The romance that needs money
Someone attractive and attentive writes to you every day. They live far away, often for a reason that also explains why they cannot make a video call: an oil platform, a military posting, a hospital contract abroad. After days or weeks of warm conversation there is an emergency. A customs fee, a hospital bill, a blocked bank account, a plane ticket to finally visit you. The amount is small at first and grows each time.
The investment friend
This person does not ask for money. They show you how much they are earning with crypto or foreign exchange and offer to teach you. You are sent to a professional-looking website or app, deposit a little, and watch the balance rise. The numbers are invented. When you try to withdraw, there is a "tax" or "verification fee", and then the site disappears.
The fake moderator or support agent
A message that appears to come from an administrator says your account will be closed unless you confirm your password or pay a fee. Real staff of a chat service do not ask for your password, and they do not ask for payment in a private message.
The verification code trick
Someone says they sent a code to your phone by mistake and asks you to read it to them. That code is the login code for your own WhatsApp, Telegram or e-mail account. Reading it out hands the account over.
Blackmail after a private exchange
A new contact moves quickly to intimate talk and asks for photos or a video call, often after sending pictures that are not really theirs. Afterwards they threaten to send the recording to your family unless you pay. This is organised crime, not a personal quarrel, and it targets men at least as often as women.
The job or visa offer
For people living abroad, or hoping to, offers of work permits, quick visas or remote jobs are especially tempting. If a stranger in a chat room asks for a "processing fee" or a copy of your passport, it is not a job.
Warning signs they have in common
- Speed. Strong feelings, big promises or business proposals within days.
- No live contact. The camera is always broken, the connection always too weak.
- Moving platform. Pressure to leave the chat room for a private messenger immediately.
- Urgency. It must be today, and you must not tell anyone.
- Unusual payment. Gift cards, crypto, money transfer to a third person.
- A story that keeps growing. Each payment reveals a new obstacle.
Simple checks that expose a fake profile
Search the photo. Save the profile picture and run it through a reverse image search such as Google Lens or TinEye. Stolen photos of models, soldiers and doctors turn up under many different names.
Ask for something specific and live. A short video call, or a photo holding today's date written on paper, takes an honest person one minute. A scammer will have an excuse.
Listen for details. Ask about the city they say they live in: the weather today, a neighbourhood, what time it is. Scripts are vague, and the time zone often does not match.
Notice the language. Messages that sound copied, switch style suddenly, or ignore what you actually wrote are often sent to many people at once.
Talk to someone. Scams depend on secrecy. Describing the situation to a friend for two minutes is often enough to see it clearly.
The one rule that covers everything
Do not send money, gift cards, crypto, codes or identity documents to anyone you know only from the internet. No real friendship, relationship or business depends on breaking that rule, and every scam does.
If you have already been caught
- Stop all contact. Do not send a "final" payment to get earlier money back.
- Keep everything: names, messages, payment receipts, wallet addresses.
- Call your bank or card provider at once. A transfer can sometimes be stopped in the first hours.
- Change the passwords of any account you mentioned or logged into through a link.
- Report it to the police where you live and to the platform where you met the person.
- Be ready for a second wave: "recovery agents" who promise to get your money back for a fee are the same scam again.
Being deceived says nothing about your intelligence. These schemes are run by people who do it full time. Reporting what happened protects the next person, and in a chat room it lets the moderators remove the account quickly.