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.
Scam types117
Case files331
Named figures31
Reporting guides35
Glossary terms46
Articles9
Reported losses by country and year
All charts and datasetsStart 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
All 117 scheme pages 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.
Latest daily brief
All daily briefsRecent case files
All case filesDocumented cases from court records, prosecutors and regulators. A charge is an allegation, and is labelled as one.
2026
Maplewood deli owner sentenced to 54 months for claiming 1.6 million meals at a strip mall
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed, 41, of Minneapolis, owner of Gurley Deli in Maplewood, Minnesota, was sentenced to 54 months in prison and ordered to pay more th…
2026Tribal social worker sentenced for becoming payee for a disabled child in her care
Akeatha Diane Akintola, 48, formerly of Bellevue, Washington, a social worker for the Snoqualmie Tribe, pleaded guilty to theft of public funds and wa…
2026A 150-square-foot Boston store trafficked nearly $7 million in SNAP benefits
Antonio Bonheur, 74, owned Jesula Variety Store, a 150-square-foot shop in Boston's Mattapan neighborhood, where he personally worked the register exc…
2026An insurance brokerage president sentenced to 20 years for a $135 million ACA subsidy fraud
AP of South Florida (APSF), a subsidiary of national insurance brokerage AssuredPartners, fraudulently enrolled vulnerable people, including homeless …
2026New York sues Attyx (formerly SUNco) and two lenders over 'free' solar and roof offers
On March 17, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Attyx LLC (formerly SUNco), two of its CEOs, and the lenders Solar Mosaic and WebBank,…
2026Laundering $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…
Long-form
All articles 2026-10-10
How a money mule account works, and how people end up as one
A mule account is where stolen money lands before it moves on. This post sets out how the FBI, the FDIC's inspector general, UK prosecutors, Cifas and Europol describe mules, how people are recruited, and why being deceived does not make you a victim of the fraud in the law's eyes.
2026-10-10How to check that an investment firm or lender is real, and what the check cannot tell you
Regulators in the US, UK, Australia and Canada publish free registers of licensed firms. They are the right first step, but scammers copy real firm names, registration numbers and even register entries, so a lookup is only as good as the contact details you use.
2026-10-10Card, bank transfer or app: how the way you paid decides whether you get money back
The same scam can end in a refund or a total loss depending on the payment method. This post sets out what US federal rules, UK reimbursement rules and Australian regulators actually say, and where the written protection stops.
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.