Scams are easier to spot once you’ve seen one taken apart.

Most scam advice is a list of things to be careful about. That doesn’t help much at the moment it matters, which is usually a Tuesday afternoon when a message lands that looks completely normal.

So every entry here does the same four things: reproduces the message, highlights the exact words that give it away, walks through what happens if you answer, and says what to do if you already did. If you can match what you got against the specimen at the top of the page, you have your answer without reading any further.

Where the material comes from

Reports from people who received the messages, warnings published by the companies being impersonated, and security research. Every specimen says underneath it whether the wording is quoted or reconstructed from several reports, because a reconstruction that looks like a screenshot is its own small deception.

Corrections

Scams change faster than articles do. If something here is wrong or out of date, or you got a version that doesn’t match what’s described, say so and it gets fixed — entries carry an updated date when they change.

What this isn’t

It isn’t legal, financial, or security advice, and it can’t recover money. If you’ve lost funds, contact your bank immediately and file a report at reportfraud.ftc.gov. If a work account is involved, tell your IT or security team before you do anything else — they care far more about knowing early than about whether you clicked.