How to spot a fake vendor profile: five red flags

Cybersecurity for individuals isn't about antivirus software; it's about habits. Ninety percent of reported frauds don't involve technical vulnerabilities; they involve people being convinced by a phone call, SMS, or a well-crafted message to do the wrong thing.

A simple but powerful habit is to keep the minimum possible funds on the card you use for online purchases. Use a dedicated prepaid card; load only the amount you need and nothing more. Even if someone manages to steal its data, the maximum damage is already limited from the outset. A small inconvenience for great peace of mind.

Two-factor authentication should be active on anything that involves money or identity: your bank, primary email, and your favorite marketplace account. Even better is a passkey, the latest system and most resistant to phishing attacks. It takes five minutes to set up once, and it eliminates half of your risks.

The first thing I look at when paying online is the method the vendor asks me to use. If someone insists on an immediate bank transfer to a personal account, or worse, a postal top-up, nine times out of ten, something is off. It's not even a matter of trust anymore; it's that these tools, by their very nature, don't offer a real way to change your mind. Once the money is sent, you're chasing it.

If you've been scammed online, report it. Always. Even for small amounts, even if you're convinced that "it's useless anyway." Reports are the only way the postal police can reconstruct patterns and shut down connected accounts. Each report, in aggregate, protects the next person.

If you receive a strange message from a fake courier, a fake bank, or a fake operator of one of the sites you use, there's only one rule: don't click. Close the message, open the official app or website manually, and find the information there. Most scams die out when the victim ignores the link and authenticates through the official channel.

Of course, sometimes something unexpected will still happen. That's part of the game. But when it does, if you've done your groundwork well, the problem will be resolved with a few emails and not a police report. That's a huge victory, even if it doesn't seem like it.