How to save yourself from Scammers:

 We live in a world dominated by social media, where the concept of privacy seems to have become little more than a word. With the immense influence of social media, people are sharing their personal details easily on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and more.

Among all the social networks, LinkedIn is often seen as a professional platform, and indeed, it serves as one of the best spaces to build a professional network. However, scammers are now exploiting this platform to collect personal information and misuse it for their own gain. Unfortunately, many of us are careless when responding to posts.

Scammers often create enticing job postings—both local and international—that promise a handsome salary with minimal experience required, sometimes offering 30,000 to 60,000 a month for just 5 days of work. Driven by necessity or greed, many fall for these traps and share their mobile numbers and email addresses with the scammers. These scammers then sell this personal information to others who are involved in financial fraud.

It’s important to understand that your mobile number and email address are crucial pieces of information, often linked to your bank accounts and various other apps on your devices.

You might think you’re aware of these risks, but I felt compelled to write about this after scrolling through my LinkedIn feed and seeing how common these posts have become. In fact, it seems like every fifth post on LinkedIn is a job offer that promises a high salary with minimal work. Given that LinkedIn users are typically educated and sensible, it’s concerning to see people casually sharing their personal details in response to such posts.

So, why do we fall for these scams? The answer is simple: scammers create a sense of trust through their posts by sharing a mobile number and asking you to call or wait for a response. I dare ask: how many of you have actually received a call back from such posts?

Here are some tips on how to protect yourself from these scammers:

1. Check the account that is posting the job offer.
2. Verify the authenticity of the person asking for your credentials.
3. In most cases, these accounts are fake.
4. Visit their profile to review their job history.
5. Many of these scammers claim to be digital marketing influencers, freelancers, self-employed or entrepreneurs.
6. Be aware that many immigration consultants engage in similar tactics, collecting personal information for fraudulent purposes.
7. Ask for details about the company behind the post, such as their website, social media presence, office address, etc.
8. Determine whether the account belongs to a real person or is AI-driven. You can usually tell by reading their profile in detail.
9. Never call the phone number provided in such posts, as they will try to convince you to fall into their trap.
10. Ask detailed questions about the job profile to gauge its legitimacy.
11. If you have connected with such accounts, remove them immediately.

These are just a few points to consider before sharing any personal information on fake job postings—not only on LinkedIn but across all social platforms.

It’s also the responsibility of LinkedIn to protect its users from scammers by introducing more security features during profile creation. They could use AI to verify account authenticity and take other measures to safeguard their users. However, until that happens, we, as social media users, must stay vigilant and keep our wits about us when encountering such posts.

As many successful people have said, "There are no shortcuts to success." It’s up to us to learn new skills, explore traditional approaches, and avoid falling for scams that ask us to share our personal information.

I hope this helps you become more aware of the risks we face in our daily lives, risks that we often ignore. From now on, let’s be more cautious and protect not only ourselves but also those around us.