Hooked is free. It will stay free.
I'm not a startup. I'm not a charity. I don't have a Patreon strategy. I have a full-time job, a wife, and five kids, all of whom I provide for solely on my income, and I do that proudly. Hooked is a hobby. A genuinely enjoyable one.
The infrastructure costs me almost nothing. A domain, a small VPS, a DNS bill that rounds to zero. I will never need anyone's money to keep the lights on. If the day comes that I can't afford the VPS, I'll run it on a Raspberry Pi in a closet before I'd run a donate to keep the site alive guilt-trip on a reader.
So why is there a button on this page at all?
Because every once in a while, someone reads a case file, recognizes the script that almost got them or someone they love, and feels like sending something. They've asked. I've decided to stop getting in their way. That is the entire reason this page exists.
If you've found something here useful, for yourself, for a parent, for a friend who almost got pulled in, and a coffee feels right, that means a lot. If it doesn't, please don't. Genuinely.
I expect nothing. I will not ask twice. I won't put this in your face on every page, run a popup, or auto-play a video about how I do it for the love of the craft.
what your support won't be doing
- It will not keep the site online. It already is, and it will be tomorrow.
- It will not pay a salary. Mine comes from elsewhere.
- It will not unlock anything. There is no premium tier, no members-only feed, no paywall on the way. Hooked is open and will stay that way.
what it actually does
- Buys me a coffee, a beer, or a takeout meal after a long investigation night.
- Marginally offsets infrastructure. Negligibly, but appreciated.
- Reminds me, quietly, on a random Tuesday, that the work mattered to a stranger. That is a surprisingly motivating thing.
That is the whole list. No tiers. No perks. No exclusive Discord. No NFT.
a better way to support, if you want one
If you want to help and a coffee is not your thing, here are the moves I'd actually rank higher:
- Send a case to someone who looks like they're in one. Family members count. Friends count. Coworkers count. The earlier you intervene, the more you save them. Most pig-butchering victims don't realize until six figures in.
- Report a scam you encountered. Even a half-finished one. Every report sharpens the next investigation.
- Link to hookedscams.com wherever scam discussions happen online. Reddit threads, Facebook groups, Nextdoor, neighborhood forums, comment sections under news articles about a scam someone got hit by. The more this site shows up in searches, the more victims-in-progress find it before they wire the money. That's the win condition.
That is worth more than a tip jar.
a small note on referral links
The Privacy.com link in the coin-front case is my personal referral. If you sign up through it we both get $5. That money goes into the same hobby fund. It is the only affiliate link on the entire site, and it's only there because Privacy.com is genuinely the tool I use to run these investigations safely.
If you ever see another affiliate-style link appear on Hooked, assume someone has compromised the site and let me know.