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Editorial standards

Every scam guide on this site is written to answer one question fast: is this a scam, and what do I do now? Here is how we make sure the answer is right.

Who writes the guides

Guides are researched and written by the AskBeforeYouSend editorial team. AI tools help us research and draft. No guide is published until every fact on it has been checked against the official source linked at the bottom of that page.

Sources we use, in order

1. Government agencies: the FTC, the FBI and its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the FCC, Social Security's Inspector General, the IRS, Medicare, the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Courts and state DMVs.
2. The impersonated company's own security pages, such as Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, Amazon, Meta and Publishers Clearing House.
3. Consumer groups: AARP Fraud Watch Network and BBB Scam Tracker.

We don't use anonymous blogs or forums as sources. Numbers (losses, complaint counts) come only from the agency that published them, with the year.

Example messages

Unless a guide says otherwise, example messages are made up to show the pattern. Phone numbers use the fictional 555 range, and web addresses are invented, so nobody calls or visits a real scam.

Dates and updates

Each guide shows when it was last checked. We re-check guides when an agency publishes a new warning and at least every few months. The latest scam alerts page lists new official warnings as they come out.

What we never do

• We never say a message is "safe". The checker gives three answers: Stop, Can't be sure, or No common signs found.
• We never let sponsors change a guide or the checker. See our ad policy.
• We never promise to get money back, and we never recommend paid "recovery" services.

Corrections

Found a mistake or an outdated fact? Email maxwellperkins+scam@mail.grokbot.com with the page and the source. We fix confirmed errors and update the date on the page.

See every source we cite on the sources page.