Scam library
Money & Investment scams
Investment, crypto, grant and courier-cash scams: how the money actually moves, and the words that give the fraud away. There are 3 money & investment guides on Scam Wise.
The guides here deal with offers and instructions that separate you from your savings: investment and crypto pitches promising large safe returns, Ponzi and pyramid schemes, fake brokers, a new friend who turns out to be recruiting you into crypto, and the courier con in which someone comes to your door for gold bars or cash. They are written for people with savings to protect and for the relatives who notice the withdrawals. The Gold Bar Scam: A Courier at the Door for Your Savings is the newest guide here, Spotting Investment and Crypto Scams covers the pitches you will meet online, and Too Good to Be True: Why Classic Investment Scams Still Work explains why the same promise keeps finding new buyers.
The single habit that helps most is refusing to move money on someone else's instructions. No real agency or bank asks you to buy gold, and no genuine investment needs a wire, a gift card, crypto or cash for a courier.
Every money & investment guide
The Gold Bar Scam: A Courier at the Door for Your Savings
Scammers posing as government agents and bank fraud departments tell older adults to turn their savings into gold bars and hand them to a courier. Here is how the gold bar scam works, the words that give it away, and what to do if it has already started.
Read: The Gold Bar Scam
Spotting Investment and Crypto Scams
Watch out for investment scams – those offers that promise to make you rich, but only make the scammers richer – and the world of cryptocurrency cons.
Read: Spotting Investment and Crypto ScamsToo Good to Be True: Why Classic Investment Scams Still Work
The promise sounds perfect: a guaranteed return, a secret tip, an opportunity that won’t last. It’s the oldest trick in the book – and it still works, because hope is a powerful thing. Investment scams led to an astonishing $5.7 billion in reported losses in 2024 – more than any other type of fraud.
Read: Too Good to Be TrueGet the scam alerts that matter
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