Wirebook › Lesson 16 of 18
How can you spot a fake message?
Most messages are exactly what they say. A few are costumes: a thief dressed up as a game, a bank, a parcel company or even a friend, hoping you'll click before you think. Grown-ups call it phishing, because the message is bait on a hook. The good news is that fakes nearly always leave the same clues. Here's a pretend inbox to sort, a magnifying glass that shows who really sent each message, and an X-ray for any link.
The five clues fakes leave behind
- ⏰ They rush you. "In 10 minutes", "LOCKED", "today or it goes back". Hurry stops you thinking, so a countdown is the biggest clue of all. Real companies are happy to wait.
- 🎁 It's too good to be true. Free gems, a prize you never entered for, a brand-new phone for answering three questions.
- 🔑 They ask for a secret. Your password, the code from your phone, card numbers, your address. A real website never asks you to send those in a message.
- 🎭 The sender isn't who they say. The name at the top can say anything. The address underneath, or a phone number you don't know, tells the truth more often (but even that can be faked).
- 🔗 The link goes somewhere else. The words on a button can say "Blockcraft" while the button goes to free-gems.win. The real owner of a link is the part just before the first single slash, read from the right-hand end.
Why does anyone bother?
Sending a million fake messages costs almost nothing, so even if only a handful of people fall for it, the thief wins. That's why fakes go to everyone, not just to you: you weren't picked, you were one of a crowd. It also means you don't need to be clever to beat them. You just need to slow down.
Fakes are getting better at spelling and pictures, and some even use a real friend's hacked account, so no single clue is perfect. Put the clues together: did you expect this? Is it rushing you? Is it asking for something secret? Where does the link really go? Two "yes" answers to the wrong questions is enough to stop.