Plain English
The scam playbook, decoded
33 terms for how money actually gets taken, and what the rules say you are owed afterwards. Every one links to a full definition with its primary source and audio.
Almost every one has the same three beats
- 1
Contact you did not start
A call, text, email, or message from someone you did not approach. The channel is interchangeable. The fact that they came to you is the constant.
- 2
A reason to hurry
A warrant, a suspended account, a closing window, a sick relative, an investment about to move. Urgency is not incidental to the con. It is the part that stops you checking.
- 3
A payment that cannot come back
Gift cards, wires, crypto, or an instant transfer to a stranger. These get requested because they are hard to reverse. A real bank, employer, or agency asking for one of these is the anomaly, not the routine.
Recognizing the third beat is usually faster than recognizing the story attached to it. The story is designed to be convincing. The payment method is a constraint the scammer cannot get around.
How they reach you
The opening move is always a message you did not ask for. The channel changes, the shape does not. Naming the channel is the fastest way to recognize one in progress.
Phishing
Phishing is a scam where a fake email, text, or call pretends to be a trusted company to trick you into handing over passwords or account details.
Smishing (text scam)
Phishing by text message, where a fake alert about a delivery, bank, or account tries to get you to tap a link or share information.
Vishing (voice scam)
A phone-call scam where someone poses as your bank, a company, or an agency to pressure you into sharing information or moving money.
Spoofing
Faking the sender details on a call, text, or email so it appears to come from a trusted person, company, or agency.
Social engineering
Manipulating people into giving up information or money by exploiting trust, urgency, fear, or authority rather than hacking systems.
The plays
The story told to get you moving. Most of these are decades old and simply changed costume when the technology changed. The details vary and the ask does not.
Imposter scam
A scammer pretends to be someone you trust, a bank, an agency, a company, or a family member, to get you to send money or share information.
Government imposter scam
A scam where someone claims to be from the IRS, Social Security, or another agency, threatening penalties unless you pay immediately.
Tech support scam
A scam where a fake warning or caller claims your computer is infected, then charges you or gains remote access to steal money.
Romance scam
A scammer builds a fake romantic relationship online to win trust, then invents emergencies or opportunities to ask for money.
Pig butchering scam
A long-con investment scam where a stranger builds trust or romance over weeks, then lures you into a fake, often crypto, investment.
Advance-fee scam
A scam that promises a loan, prize, grant, or windfall but first requires an upfront payment that only enriches the scammer.
Overpayment scam
A scam where someone pays you too much with a fake check or payment, then asks you to refund the difference before it bounces.
Charity scam
Fake charities or fundraisers, often surging after disasters, that pressure you to donate to a cause that does not exist or keeps the money.
How the money actually leaves
This is the useful tell. Every one of these payment routes is hard or impossible to claw back, which is exactly why it gets requested. A legitimate organization asking for one of these is the anomaly, not the norm.
Gift card scam
Any scam that demands payment in gift cards, a near-universal sign of fraud because the cards are fast, anonymous, and irreversible.
Zelle / P2P payment scam
Scams that push you to send money through an app like Zelle, Venmo, or Cash App, where transfers are instant and hard to reverse.
P2P payment scams
P2P payment scams trick you into sending money through apps like Zelle or Venmo, where transfers are fast and very hard to claw back.
Wire transfer
A wire transfer moves money directly between banks, usually same day, and is fast, final, and very hard to reverse once sent.
Wire fraud red flags
Wire fraud red flags are warning signs someone is tricking you into wiring money to a scammer, like last-minute changes to payment instructions.
Check fraud
Scams using fake or stolen checks, often relying on the gap between a bank making funds available and the check actually clearing.
Card skimming
Card skimming is when thieves attach a hidden device to a card reader or ATM to secretly copy your card number when you swipe.
Money mule
Someone who moves scam or stolen money for others, often unknowingly through a fake job or romance, which can carry real legal risk.
What you are owed when money leaves without your say-so
Being defrauded is not the same as consenting to a payment, and the rules distinguish between them. These four terms cover the federal rule for electronic transfers, the disputes it creates, and the card-network process that sits alongside it.
Regulation E
The federal rule protecting consumers on electronic transfers. It caps your liability for unauthorized debit-card charges if you report them promptly.
Unauthorized transaction (Reg E)
A charge or transfer you did not authorize; federal Regulation E gives you rights to dispute it and limits your liability if you report promptly.
Disputed transaction
A disputed transaction is a charge you formally tell your bank or card issuer is wrong, unauthorized, or never delivered, so it can be investigated.
Chargeback
A chargeback is when a customer disputes a card charge with their bank, and the money is pulled back out of your business account.
After identity theft
A separate track from a single stolen payment. When the target was your identity rather than one account, these are the mechanisms that exist for it.
Credit freeze
Locking your credit reports so no one, including you, can open new credit in your name until you lift it.
Fraud alert
A fraud alert is a free flag you place on your credit file that tells lenders to verify your identity before opening new credit in your name.
Identity theft report
An identity theft report is an official report of identity theft that unlocks stronger legal rights to remove fraudulent accounts from your credit.
Credit dispute
A credit dispute is a formal request asking a credit bureau to investigate and correct information on your credit report that you believe is wrong.
Harder to hit, and how that gets picked
Account security terms, plus the attack built specifically to defeat the most common form of it. Worth knowing together, because one is the answer to the other.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
A login protection that requires a second step beyond your password, so a stolen password alone cannot open your account.
Two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication adds a second step, like a one-time code, on top of your password so a stolen password alone cannot get into your account.
Password manager
A tool that creates and stores a strong, unique password for every account, so you only have to remember one master password.
SIM swap fraud
When a scammer takes over your phone number by moving it to their device, intercepting the codes that protect your accounts.
Where to report it
Reporting will not usually get your money back, and it is worth doing anyway: it is how these operations get traced, and an identity theft report is the document lenders and credit bureaus ask you for later. Contact your bank or card issuer first, because the clock on a dispute starts when you tell them.
- reportfraud.ftc.gov(opens in a new tab)Federal Trade Commission
Report a scam, a fraud attempt, or a bad business practice, whether or not you lost money.
- identitytheft.gov(opens in a new tab)Federal Trade Commission
Report identity theft and get a written recovery plan, including the affidavit lenders and credit bureaus ask for.
What this page is NOT
- Not advice about your situation. This explains how these scams work and what the rules cover in general. It cannot tell you what to do about a specific transaction on your account.
- Not a way to report anything or recover money. We are an education site with no account access and no relationship with your bank. Nothing you submit here reaches anyone. The reporting section above lists where a report actually goes.
- Not legal advice on your rights. Regulation E and the card-network chargeback rules are real and they have real limits, conditions, and deadlines. Those live on the term pages with their citations, and a lawyer is the person who applies them to your case.
- Not a complete list. These are the plays common enough to be worth naming. New variants appear constantly, and the three beats above outlast any list we could keep current.
- Not a judgment. These scripts are tested on thousands of people before they reach you, and they are built to work on attentive, competent adults having a bad day. Being caught by one is not evidence about your intelligence.