It's certainly possible to strongly protect yourself though, vs casually relying on intuition which is hopeless. You just need to establish a process or set of rules to follow. Businesses do this all the time. A classic scam is sending an invoice asking for payment, and some disorganized businesses will just pay you! But those with a process won't because you won't be able to give them a matching purchase order number and other things their process needs.

A basic personal protection is to not trust anyone who initiates contact with you, no matter who they say they are or what they know about you. Verify by contacting them independently instead.