what it is
Not every scam fits cleanly into one of the named categories. Some are hybrids (a romance scam that pivots into employment fraud). Some are new (a kit that emerged in the last few weeks). Some are old but rare enough that we haven't built a dedicated page for them yet, fake charity drives, real-estate deposit scams, classified-ad bait-and-switch, fake invoice fraud, "we owe you a refund" mailers.
If a case on Hooked is tagged other, it usually means we're documenting something we haven't seen run at scale yet, or it doesn't sit cleanly in one of the named buckets.
how scams reach you (universal)
Across every category, the initial contact almost always comes through one of these channels:
- Cold SMS / text, the highest-volume channel, often from long international numbers or email-to-SMS gateways.
- Cold phone call, usually with a spoofed caller ID matching a real institution.
- Robocall voicemail, "press 1 to speak to an agent" about something urgent.
- Email, from a sender domain that looks legitimate at a glance but isn't.
- DM on a social platform, X, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn, Facebook. Often after a follow-for-follow, a like on a post, or a friend request.
- Reply to your post or comment, they engage publicly first, then move to DM.
- Match on a dating app, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, Match, Bumble BFF, Words With Friends, Discord. Anywhere strangers can chat.
- Friend request from a stranger or near-stranger with mutual connections.
- Group chat invite, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal, Reddit chat, to a "trading", "earning", "support" room.
- Browser popup or push notification on a website you visited.
- Search ad spoofing a real brand's customer-support phone number.
- QR code on a sticker, poster, parking meter, restaurant table, or shipping notification.
- Physical mailer that looks like an invoice or government letter.
- Door-knock for fake "inspectors", "tax collectors", or "utility workers", rare, but it happens, especially against the elderly.
If a contact came to you (not the other way around) and they want money, access, or your information, treat it as untrusted no matter how legitimate it looks. Real institutions are happy to wait while you verify by calling back through an official channel.
the universal off-platform / keep-you-here tactic
Almost every scam, social, financial, or institutional, includes a step where the operator either pushes you to move the conversation (social scams) or refuses to let you off the line (phone scams). These are operationally the same tactic in different forms.
Social and platform-based scams want to move you to WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, or SMS so:
- The original platform can't see what happens next.
- Reports back to the platform later have no actionable evidence.
- The fake account stays unbanned longer to be used against the next person.
- Multiple aliases stay unlinked across platforms.
Phone-based scams want to keep you on the call so:
- You can't hang up and call the real institution back.
- You can't talk to a friend, spouse, or pharmacist who could break the spell.
- You can't Google whether the situation is even real.
- You can't notice that the urgency and the asks don't match how real institutions operate.
In both cases the operator's goal is the same: take away your ability to verify before you act. If a stranger insists the conversation has to leave the moderated platform, or insists you can't hang up, that single behavior is enough to slow down on. Real people, real institutions, and real new contacts have no operational reason to push.
the universal red flags
These show up in almost every consumer scam, regardless of category. If two or more apply, slow down:
- Urgency. A deadline you can't push back on, often hours.
- Unusual payment. Gift cards, crypto, wire to an individual, "company wallet", peer-to-peer apps used outside a marketplace.
- A platform you've never heard of. Especially one that's only weeks or months old.
- You can't verify the other person's identity. No video call, no real-world meeting, no traceable employer.
- They want to move the conversation off the platform you met on, or refuse to let you off the phone. (See off-platform / keep-you-here tactic above.)
- Pressure to keep it quiet. "Don't tell anyone", "this is confidential", "we have to handle this between us".
- A "support" channel that isn't a phone number you can call back at the official line.
- An ask that benefits the other party first, pay this fee, deposit this margin, send this gift card, click this link.
- Sustained contact from someone who came in cold. Strangers who don't want anything are happy to drift away. Strangers who keep showing up are usually working you toward something.
the universal counter-moves
- Slow down. Almost every scam needs you to act before you think. A 24-hour pause kills most of them.
- Verify out-of-band. If "your bank" calls, call the bank back at the number on your card. If "the IRS" mails you, look up the IRS phone number on irs.gov yourself. Never use the contact info the other party gave you.
- Tell one trusted person. Scams isolate. A friend or relative breaks the spell faster than any blog post.
- Reverse-image search any photo a stranger sent you. Yandex Images is the best for this.
- Look up the domain. A website registered six weeks ago by a privacy proxy in a country you can't pronounce is not a Fortune 500. Use whois.domaintools.com or crt.sh to see how old it is.
- Search the exact opener. Copy a line from the message into a search engine in quotes. If it appears on multiple scam-tracking forums, you have your answer in 10 seconds.
reporting (works for any scam type)
These are the universal places to file, regardless of category:
- IC3 (FBI), federal complaint, especially anything financial.
- FTC, consumer record, helps shape policy and warnings.
- BBB Scam Tracker, public database; warns the next person searching the same keywords.
- Your state attorney general's consumer protection office, often has direct enforcement power.
- Your bank, card issuer, or crypto exchange, for any money that moved.
- The platform, every social network and marketplace has a fraud reporting flow. They are slow, but reports do compound.
report it to us
If you encountered something that doesn't fit the named scam types and you think it's worth investigating, send it to /report/. The more screenshots, links, and wallet addresses you include up front, the faster a case can come out of it.