SPOT THE SCAM

A client, supplier, or employer suddenly needs you to send a payment to "new" bank details. The email looks right, the letterhead is right, sometimes even the voice on the phone sounds right. The account belongs to someone else.

1. Red flag: a change of destination. Legitimate payees almost never switch bank accounts by email. A "we changed banks, please update your records" message is the single most common setup.
2. Red flag: urgency and a deadline. "Send it today" or "before 5 PM" is designed to stop you from verifying. Real payment changes survive a phone call.
3. Red flag: slightly wrong contact details. Check the actual sender address and phone number character by character — the trick is a lookalike, not a forgery.
4. Instead: verify the change through a channel you looked up yourself — a number or contact you already had, not one from the message. Never call back a number supplied in the change request itself.

Play Case File 00: The Changed Account — a $4,800 wire, a 5 PM deadline, and a voice that sounds exactly like the client.

A listing appears at well below market price with beautiful photos. The "landlord" is abroad, unreachable, or urgently relocating — but the deposit is due today.

1. Red flag: the price doesn't make sense. A listing far below comparable rentals in the same area is bait, not a bargain.
2. Red flag: you can't see it. Excuses for why you can't tour — abroad, sick, "just send the deposit and I'll mail the keys" — are the whole con.
3. Red flag: stolen photos. Reverse-image-search the listing photos. If the same apartment shows up in another city, walk away.
4. Instead: never wire money for a home you haven't walked through. Verify ownership through public property records, and sign with a verifiable person, not an email address.

Play Case File 01: The Empty Apartment — a $1,650 apartment, 20% below market, and photos that were never the landlord's.

Congratulations — you've "won" a grant, prize, or payout. There's just one problem: you have to pay a fee, tax, or processing charge to release it.

1. Red flag: you pay to receive. Real grants never charge a fee to release funds. If it asks for money first, it isn't real — full stop.
2. Red flag: official-looking paper. Letterheads, seals, and reference numbers are cheap to fake and impressive to the eye. Authority is in the payment terms, not the stationery.
3. Red flag: a prize you never applied for. Grants you didn't apply to, from foundations you've never heard of, don't find you by email.
4. Instead: stop at the first request for payment and verify through the foundation's own published contact details — looked up independently, never from the letter.

Play Case File 02: The Grant — a nonprofit just "won" $50,000. All they have to do is pay $1,200 first.

A cashier's check arrives — real-looking, substantial. Deposit it, keep a cut, and wire the rest back. Or it's payment for a gig, slightly over what was agreed, and the sender asks you to return the difference.

1. Red flag: the overpayment. Being sent too much money, and asked to return the difference, is the entire mechanism. Nobody overpays by accident and fixes it through your bank account.
2. Red flag: "available" isn't "cleared." Banks often show deposited check funds before the check is verified. A balance on screen is not proof the money exists — fake checks can take days to bounce.
3. Red flag: keep-your-cut instructions. Being paid to forward money makes you the courier in someone else's crime, and the wired money is gone long before the check bounces.
4. Instead: never wire against an unverified deposit. Wait until the check fully clears — and independently confirm who sent it before moving a dollar.

Play Case File 03: The Check — a $3,900 cashier's check and a dream gig. The money shows up tomorrow and vanishes next week.

A "part-time gig" in an app pays small, real money for easy tasks. Then the tiers appear: top up your balance to unlock bigger tasks and bigger payouts. The first payout was the bait.

1. Red flag: the small real payouts. Paying you $86 today is how they earn your trust for the $500 request tomorrow. Early wins are a marketing expense, not a track record.
2. Red flag: paying to earn. Topping up, deposits, "unlock fees," VIP tiers — in legitimate work, money flows one way: to you. Any job that asks you to pay to get paid is the con.
3. Red flag: escalating tiers. Each tier demands more than the last, with ever-larger promised returns just out of reach. The top tier is always one payment away.
4. Instead: treat any request to top up or deposit as the end of the conversation. Real employers never require a payment to process your pay.

Play Case File 04: The Task App — a part-time gig that pays real money, until the day it asks for yours.

Never send money, credentials, or verification codes to test a suspected scam.

Sending "just a small amount to see if it's real," entering your login on a site to check it, or reading back a verification code will never confirm a scam — it will only complete it. Verification happens through independent channels, never through the thing you're suspicious of.