With the scammers on a rise, here are some of the Covid scams you must look out for:

• Vaccine and Home Remedy Scams
  The beginning of the pandemic proved to be a boon to all the scammers as their method of earning became a whole lot easier. These scammers engage in cold calls and text messages stating easy and at-home remedies to cure corona in exchange for a fee. The innocent people, who do not have much knowledge of the virus and the intensity of the pandemic, pay for these bogus remedies and end up losing their hard-earned money to such Covid scams. Various health regulators have published statements and issued warnings against such Covid scams and also published information about how some of the remedies can improve immunity but not cure the virus. In other scams, these fraudsters have also been offering essential supplies such as masks and sanitizers through text messages, ads, and calls.
• Identity Thefts and Covid Scams
  Another major scam that brushed the headlines was identity theft during the pandemic. In order to encourage other people to get vaccinated, people started posting their vaccination cards or information on social media. This resulted in identity thefts as the cards contain the person’s personal information. Such personal information is stolen from a plethora of people and later put on sale in the dark underbelly of the internet that we fondly call the dark web.
• Charity for Corona Scams
  A lot of charities have opened up across the world in the time of the pandemic. These charities are an easier way for people to donate money or goods to those who cannot afford basic essentials and necessities.
  However, the goodwill behind this has been misused by a lot of cybercriminals. These scammers put up fake charities and claim to send the funds, collected by the charity, to faraway countries. These fraudsters successfully steal a lot of money from innocent people in this method.
• The Fake Government Scams
  In this type of scam, the fraudsters call the people pretending to be a government authority. This proceeds to the scammer stating a fake excuse to get your personal information or money. These calls were common even before the pandemic; however, it has observed a rise during times of lockdown. The excuses given by the scammers revolve around early registration for the vaccination, Covid check-up, etc.
• Banking and Scams
  Banking Scams have also been popular before the pandemic; however, the lockdown and the intense spread of the virus has made people a little more vulnerable to the petty scams as the lockdown forbids them from physically going to the banks and checking. Such scams are also conducted through phone calls or SMS where the scammer pretends to be a bank authority and gives a bogus excuse stating that the customer has incurred a loss or trouble has shot up regarding their account. Most of the time, the person might not even receive a call from their bank but still believe in this scam and end up sharing their personal information with a random stranger on the phone.
• Grandparent Scams
  As the name suggests, these types of scams are often curated to target older people as this generation is believed to be a bit more vulnerable than the rest. The scammers will pretend to be a grandchild in desperate need of money and call the grandparents. These cybercriminals put psychological pressure on the grandparents so that they do not get time to think twice. They usually ask the grandparents to wire the money for travel, food, or medicine.
• Covid Help Scam
  In this type of scam, the people are bombarded with text messages and calls asking for donations to a Covid Relief Fund. This is an easy method for scammers to earn money as most people readily donate to such relief funds without doing proper research. Another type of scam that gets covered in this category is when the scammer pretends to be a government authority and calls the families to ask for the personal information of the family members who have died due to Covid. The scammers receive personal information in this way.