How scams actually work
Most scam advice is a list of warnings. This is the other thing: one page per scheme, explaining what the operation on the other end is actually doing — the stages, the psychology, where it runs from, the documented cases, and where the money goes. Every figure is sourced and dated.
If it is happening right now
Three things, in this order. Stop paying — no fee, tax or "release payment" ever unlocks money that does not exist. Call your bank on the number printed on your card, not one you were given. Then check: the sixteen questions take two minutes and run entirely in your browser.
Start here
Scams sort into a small number of shapes. Once you can see the shape, the individual variations stop mattering — you are no longer memorising a list of tricks.
Investment
Fake returns on a real-looking platform. The highest losses per victim, by a wide margin.
Romance & relationship
A relationship built to be spent. Trust first, money second.
Business & payments
Payment redirection aimed at the person who signs the cheques.
Tech support & remote access
A fake problem with your computer, fixed by giving away control of it.
Identity theft
Your details reused to open, empty, or take over an account.
Impersonation
Someone you are trained to obey: the tax office, the police, your bank, your child.
Job & task
Work that costs money instead of paying it.
Extortion
Payment demanded under threat of exposure, arrest, or harm.
Other
Everything that does not fit the boxes above.
Purchase & marketplace
Goods, tickets, rentals, or pets that were never there.
Charity & disaster
A disaster used as a collection tin.
The schemes
Investment
Pig butchering
A months-long relationship built for one purpose: to get you onto a fake trading platform and keep you paying in.
Romance & relationshipRomance scams
A relationship built to be spent — where the first request for money is small, urgent, and framed as a crisis.
Business & paymentsBusiness email compromise
Someone reads a real payment conversation from inside a real mailbox, then joins it with different bank details.
InvestmentFake investment platforms
A trading dashboard that shows everything except the one thing that matters — that no trade ever happened.
Tech support & remote accessFake tech support
A fake problem with your computer, solved by giving a stranger control of it — and then of your bank.
Identity theftSIM swap
Someone convinces your mobile carrier to move your number to their SIM, and every code you rely on starts arriving on their phone.
ImpersonationGrandparent and family emergency scams
A frightened voice claiming to be your grandchild, an arrest, and a courier on the way for the bail money.
ImpersonationBank impersonation and the safe account
A call from your bank's real number, telling you your money is at risk and must be moved somewhere safe.
Three things the data actually says
- Volume and harm point in different directions. Phishing generates the most complaints by a wide margin and some of the smallest average losses. Investment fraud and business email compromise generate a fraction of the reports and most of the money. See it plotted.
- The payment rail is the real red flag. Bank transfers and cryptocurrency account for the overwhelming majority of reported losses in the United States, despite being used in a minority of reports. They are the rails with no reversal. See the breakdown.
- Older victims report fewer scams and lose far more each time. Total losses peak in middle age; median loss per person rises steadily with age and is highest for people over 80. See the age profile.
Recent case files
Documented cases from court records, prosecutors and regulators. A charge is an allegation, and is labelled as one.
2026
Laundering $3.1m of scam proceeds through salvaged cars shipped to West Africa
In August 2026 a Nigerian national living in Houston was sentenced to 95 months in prison for leading a conspiracy that laundered more than $3.1 milli…
2026A Florida woman convicted of exploiting a widowed neighbor for $350,000
Kimberly Ruth Bitting, 58, of Leesburg, Florida, obtained power of attorney over an elderly neighbor shortly after the victim's husband died in August…
2026A $200 million credit repair network halted by a federal court
In August 2026 the FTC sued a network of 17 companies operating under names including Credit Glory, Credit Sage and Credit Cop, plus five named princi…
2026200 pharmacy websites seized, and six people dead
On 4 February 2026 the DEA announced the seizure of more than 200 website domains tied to an India-based criminal organisation it says is responsible …
2026A 79-year-old mule ordered to repay $1.97 million she never kept
Sharon Dolisi, 79, of Phelps County, Missouri, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud after depositing more than $2 million from 2…
2026The company that quoted you may not own a truck
FMCSA distinguishes between a moving company, which owns trucks and takes responsibility for your goods, and a broker, which owns nothing and arranges…
The other half of the story
Scams are where dirty money is made. Its second life — the accounts, shell companies, trade invoices and exchanges that turn it into money someone can spend — is the subject of the sibling site, Clean on Paper. Every scheme page here ends with a link into the matching technique there.