Are you smarter than a scammer? Take this quiz.

Exactly. There was no context.

Did the person actually sign up for GeekSquad AV? They didn't say.

Does the person actually have a Facebook account? They didn't say.

Plus I always assume anything that references Facebook in an email is a scam.

It's never a bad thing to be overly cautious when it comes to this stuff

If you take the quiz it all you don't get a 100%. That's the real test.

Honestly, I did pretty well (except the last one which I had no way of knowing was a legitimate web site -- and what the hell kind of name is that for a legitimate site anyway? But I digress...), but I would have taken steps to verify every single one of these before taking any further action. I just inherently distrust email and SMS messages.

How am i gonna get scammed if i assume they are all scams?

Because presumably you still interact with society as opposed to going full unibomber, and so you can't do that.

The two that weren’t scams didn’t give you enough info to identify if they aren’t and they both just as likely to be scams?

They were

It'd be weird if they weren't something that applied to you but it's still not a scam, and they explain how to tell.

Half the emails in my junk inbox are 'class action settlement' emails, so it's definitely an angle they're trying (presumably with some success)

Yeah even if the last one is not a scam, it is a scam to me, even if I knew about it. I'd go and apply on the official website rather than from the email itself.

Yeah, but the point is that if you open a web browser and look that settlement up, you’ll find a ton of authoritative sources that link back to that URL.

The point of this wasn’t to see if you could tell if each thing was likely to be a scam in the context that you would genuinely run into them.

If my grandma approached me with the class action website and asked if I was a scam, I’d tell her “it looks really suspicious, let’s see if we can find anything from a credible source that will link to this website.” Which is exactly what the article tells you to do. Of course nobody could just magically know if a screenshot of a webpage is scam just by looking at it.

The other options all either give you enough information in the screenshot to be able to Google a couple things and say “it’s a scam” confidently (class action, geek squad), or they’re full of super blatant red flags (Zelle bike).

Yep. It relies on information not present in the example. It's intended for most people to get wrong.

Similarly the Facebook one genuinely looks like a scam unless you know of the Facebook case.

Still, who pays 419$ for an antivirus?

The correct thing to do if you got that email would be to try to verify the information that it presents. Is Geek Squad Academy a real thing? How much does their antivirus cost?

Which is exactly what the article says to do, and what you should have done before answering the question. Of course the getting the questions right doesn’t matter, but the question and explanation are an excellent example of what they’re trying to teach.

Also, the grammar was just a little bit funky in that email. Could just be that the geek squad email writer has funky grammar, but it’s definitely a red flag that should make you want to double check the info in the email.

You're wrong on this one, as the other comment noted.

Have I Been Pwned has a database of leaked credentials, with notes on where the data originated, when said site was hacked, etc. It is an incredibly good resource to see if any site you use has leaked your data in a breach, and how compromising that data is (legible or unsalted passwords, credit card information, etc.).

It is a tool used to react intelligently to data breaches. You input your email address, and it tells you if your email address is present in any leaked data sets. If so, you go change that password as fast as you can.

For your comment to make any sense, giving someone your email address means you've been "Pwned". I guess you don't subscribe to a lot of newsletters, then? How does entering your email address give anyone an advantage, apart from the knowledge that it exists? 🤔

The exact same feature is baked into Chrome's password manager, 1password, and many others. Does that mean that users of those services have been "Pwned"? 😐

Pwned is legit though. its just databases of breaches.

Obviously one can use Zelle legitimately, but somebody requesting online payment and then sending somebody else to get the goods is like 95% a scam. I think the more common Zelle scam is that they fake a Zelle email that only looks like they paid you.

I've been nearly scammed like this myself. If you sell something and somebody wants to pay you via an external site (no simple transfer) without being interested in the product, it is an extremely red flag