a useful strategy, especialy in the age of AI, is to verify the identity of the entity pinging u thru one or two additional medium(s): physical, digital, or virtual (see: digital vs virtual);

simple example: a friend's mother got called by an impersonator of her son, who said "mom, i got into an accident, i am in a hospital, i need money for a lawyer;" luckily, the father called the son directly on his other phone before the distraught mother sent the funds over;