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Delbert reported in earlier 2022 that the Internet can feel packed with scams sometimes, especially for anyone who’s had their credit card or other information stolen. But most scams fall into a small variety of types that are easy to identify and avoid once you know about them.

There are only so many ways to reinvent the wheel—scammers will usually fall into a set number of categories. Twingate assembled a list of common online scams that internet users should be wary of, drawing on research from government organizations, payment processors, and tech companies.

One of the major categories of scamming is called social engineering. An old-fashioned method that still works surprisingly well, social engineering is any fraud where a human being communicates with you to obtain information in person, online, or over the phone. Scammers will use manipulative, deceptive, or psychological tactics to get someone to reveal confidential information.

As our lives increasingly have shifted online, scammers have followed, posing as everything from fake online boyfriends to made-up charities. So the next time you get a voicemail claiming to be from Microsoft, an email that says your antivirus service is out of date, or a pop-up ad from “newy0rktimes.com,” take a few seconds and think about whether it’s a genuine message before doing anything. Continue reading to learn about the most common online scams today.