Fraud Protection

Financial scams have repeated with remarkably little variation for over a hundred years. Know the patterns, and you'll recognize almost all of them within minutes.

Scammed? What to do nowThe first 30 minutes, what you can recover depending on how you paid, and where to report it in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.The Ponzi schemeIn a Ponzi scheme, earlier investors get paid from later investors' deposits. It works as long as more money comes in than goes out, and then collapses.Pump and dumpA group buys a thinly traded asset, generates attention, and sells to the buyers it attracted. The losses fall exclusively on whoever came last.Rug pullA crypto project's creators withdraw the raised capital and disappear. The warning signs are publicly visible before buying, if you know what to look for.Gurus and signal groupsAnyone who could reliably make money trading would have no economic reason to sell courses or signals. That one consideration exposes a large part of this market.Checking a providerFour checks in a fixed order, done in a few minutes, that rule out the large majority of disreputable offers.If the money's already goneThe most important steps in the first days: pay nothing further, document everything, contact your bank and the police, and ignore offers of supposed recovery services.Phishing and fake shopsHow to spot phishing messages and fake shops, and which steps help after a click, entering data or making a payment.