To avoid getting scammed never answer any call or engage with any email you don't expect. As a bonus, ignore anyone at your front door you did not invite
It is absolutely ridiculous that we've surrendered a genuinely incredibly useful contact method because of our unwillingness to address this malicious use of it.
Last year I missed an emergency call from a friend, that I was partially expecting. The call was from their caretaker's phone and I didn't have the number in my contacts, so I ignored it. They didn't die that time but they could have, and I wouldn't have been there.
Ignoring calls is simply not an appropriate solution to this. There are no appropriate individual solutions to any systemic problem, including this one.
What’s helped me a lot is that my phone number is from a different area code than the one I currently live at. So if it’s a local number I know it’s probably legit and if it’s from my phone’s area code I know it’s a scammer.
To add to that SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, and other messaging apps are also frequently used by scammers.
Oh and in the United States at least, most government agencies will contact you by postal mail if you owe them payment and none of them accept gift cards or bitcoin.
Last year I missed an emergency call from a friend, that I was partially expecting. The call was from their caretaker's phone and I didn't have the number in my contacts, so I ignored it. They didn't die that time but they could have, and I wouldn't have been there.
Ignoring calls is simply not an appropriate solution to this. There are no appropriate individual solutions to any systemic problem, including this one.