Legit or scam? What's a good filter when asked for emergency help?

Another option is, to contact the family member via a known channel and ask them if they really lost their wallet. send a whatsapp/text message, email, call, whatever makes the most sense. Then if they say they have no clue what you are talking about, it is a scam.

This alone is not 100% good, but just another step in the verification process.

Keep in mind: The inverse Answer is not at all safe. So if the answer is "Yes I lost my wallet" it could also be, that the scammer got hold of the channel you contacted. Only denying the loss, is 100% accurate here.

MTA has given a very good answer, but there is another approach I have used in a similar situation. Someone posing as my colleague emailed me once with a similar story: wallet, pick pocket, but Scotland instead of France. I was already suspicious because he apologised for not telling me he was going to Scotland; he wasn't a close enough friend for me to expect to have been told. I posted the email into Google, and immediately got lots of hits from people asking about the scam....

My local police department actually encourages the use of their lobby for informal financial transactions such as Craig's List purchases, to help guard against fake or stolen goods.

So perhaps: Look up (do not ask them for) the phone number of a police station in whatever town they are located in. Tell them you will call there at an agreed upon time and ask if they are in the waiting room and whether you can speak to them if so. That should screen out technology-assisted fakery.

• First of all: Independently verify that your relative is actually on that trip. Contact other relatives or people that should know if they are on a trip and where. (And of course: Use your own existing contact information, not any number etc. your relative provided)


• If you have established that they likely are actually where they claim to be, you need to verify that they are who they are. The scenario where a would-be scammer would manage to impersonate them at the correct location is far less likely, but not impossible and possibly costly (e.g. someone managed to "befriend" them and your relative off-handedly mentioned that you would help them in emergencies, or if their phone - containing their info and listing you as "nephew XYZ" in contacts - were stolen). Best chance is calling them - the need to do a halfway plausible voice impersonation would add an additional hurdle, and video call would make things unprofitable for almost all scammers unless YOU are really loaded (and generous) - and ask them about a few personal details that would be unlikely to come up in casual conversation, nor likely be written down.


• Finally you should also scrutinise the reason as to why they require you to wire money via a method that is known to be risk-prone to be abused by scammers. Are there not any less risky ways to get them money? And does the story hold under scrutiny - they lost their wallet with their ID? How about the passport, they didn't keep in their wallet, right? Shouldn't the hotel have a copy of their passport on file? This also confirms that they need the money for the stated reason and are not e.g. victims of a scam themselves (where the scammer convinced them to ask you for money, but instructed them to disguise the real reason)

Companies like Western Union will transfer your money safely. The problem is there is no chance to get your money back if it is a scammer.

Ask them questions that only the two of you know the answer to and the answers are nowhere to be found on the internet.

For me, urgency is the biggest red flag. What I usually do is pause, hang up, and then call the person back on their usual number. Sometimes I’ll also ask a question only they would know. If the caller resists or pressures me, that’s when I know it’s almost certainly a scam.