Online Fraud Is Evolving: Essential Habits and Verification Practices for Digital Safety

You have good awareness and survival instincts if you can smell fraud at first impression.

But ask yourself this:

How can a company change its identity in 5 days: Jio yesterday, Airtel today, just to make you pay a bill?

If you didn’t catch it instantly, don’t beat yourself up.

Instead, build habits that make scammers irrelevant.

After having gone through multiple phishing attempts targeted at me and some basic research, I have been able to jot down my learnings together that can help you build basic hygiene rules that beat scammers every single time and no tech expertise required to beat them!

Rules & Habits to Outsmart Scammers (Every Time)

1. Always see the world with suspicion

Not paranoia.

Just default disbelief.

Assume every unsolicited message is false unless you initiated the interaction.

2. Behave like a f**king villager (intentionally)

Meaning:

• You don’t know SMS

• You don’t know WhatsApp

• You don’t know links

• You don’t know emails

Unless you triggered the company yourself.

No request from your side = no action from your side.

3. Urgency is a lie

There is no emergency in billing, KYC, refunds, or disconnections.

The only person in a hurry is the scammer.

Pause = protection.

4. Government & large companies follow strict sender formats

They do not:

• Use personal 10-digit numbers

• Write emotional or broken English

• Offer last-minute discounts

• Say “Sir please” or “urgent today.”

Look for:

• Registered sender IDs (AD-XXXX)

• Short codes

• Consistent language templates

5. No legit company asks you to “click to pay.”

Real companies expect you to:

• Open their official app

• Or log in via your own browser, manually

Any SMS link = suspicious by default.

6. Discounts don’t appear under threat

“Pay today or service stops” + “50% discount”

is classic fraud psychology.

Fear + reward = manipulation.

7. Missed calls + follow-up messages are engineered traps

Pattern:

1. Missed call (attention)

2. Reminder/threat (panic)

3. Link (action)

Real systems don’t work like this.

8. Check the URL like a lawyer, not like a user

Look for:

• Extra letters (airteI, airtell, airtel-pay)

• Subdomains (airtel.payment.verify-now.xyz)

• Shortened links

If the URL isn’t boring and obvious; walk away.

9. Fake websites look real now

Scammers now use:

• HTTPS

• Logos

• Fonts

• Clean UI

• Copy-paste brand language

Design ≠ legitimacy anymore.

Verification beats aesthetics.

10. Use independent tools to verify links & domains

Before clicking anything, check here:

• VirusTotal – scans links across 90+ security engines
  https://www.virustotal.com

• Google Safe Browsing – flags phishing & malware
  https://transparencyreport.google.com/safe-browsing/search

• URLVoid – reputation check for domains
  https://www.urlvoid.com

• ScamAdviser – trust score, domain age, risk signals
  https://www.scamadviser.com

• Who.is / ICANN Lookup – check domain age & ownership
  https://who.is

If a “company website” was created last week, run.

11. No personalization = no legitimacy

Legit messages usually include:

• Your name

• Partial account number

• Reference ID

“Dear Customer” + action request = red flag.

12. OTPs are never for verification

OTP = authorization, not validation.

If you didn’t initiate the action, never share or approve anything.

13. Apps over messages. Always.

For banks, telcos, and utilities:

• Ignore messages

• Open the official app yourself

• Check status there

If it’s real, it’ll exist inside the app.

14. Report, block, move on

In India:

• Forward spam SMS to 1909

• Block the number

• Don’t engage (engagement validates your number)

Silence hurts scammers more than arguments.

Final rule (the most important one)

Nothing bad happens if you don’t click.

Everything bad starts after you do.

Scammers thrive on speed.

Survivors move slowly.

Share this. Someone in your network will need it more than they admit.