Scams & Fraud Protection

Scams and financial fraud are aimed at every household, every day — phone calls, texts, emails, fake websites, doctored checks, suspicious refunds. The best protection is recognizing the pattern early and knowing the defensive moves that actually work: freezing your credit, knowing how a real IRS or Medicare contact differs from an imposter, and acting fast when something looks off. These guides walk through the most common threats and the practical steps that limit how much damage any one scam can do.

Identity Theft Basics

Freeze Your Credit

Protect Retirement Savings

Spot Tax Scams

Medicare Phone Scams

Start Here: Build Your Defenses

Three foundational guides for anyone serious about protecting themselves from financial fraud: understanding how identity theft works, freezing your credit so thieves can’t open accounts in your name, and the broader playbook for protecting retirement savings from the scams that increasingly target older adults.

What Is Identity Theft?

How thieves use your personal information to open accounts, file false tax returns, and take over existing accounts — and the first concrete steps to recover if it happens to you.

How to Freeze Your Credit

A credit freeze blocks new accounts from being opened in your name and is free at all three bureaus. The single most effective defensive move against identity-theft fraud.

Protect Retirement Savings

Older adults are disproportionately targeted by financial scams. Common attack patterns and the defensive measures that close the most exploited gaps in retirement accounts.

Specific Threats & Defensive Moves

The most common scams targeting U.S. households, plus the practical defenses that limit damage when something does slip through. Each guide explains what the scam looks like, what gives it away, and what to do if you’ve already responded.

Scam Categories & Recovery

Deeper looks at the specific scams targeting U.S. households — elder financial exploitation (60% of which is committed by family), the phishing patterns hiding inside ordinary-looking messages, romance and cryptocurrency scams that escalate over weeks or months, and the grandparent-emergency call that AI voice cloning is now making far more convincing. Plus the recovery playbook for when something has already gone wrong.

Payment & Messaging Scams

How victims actually lose money today — not just the scam categories but the payment vectors and messaging channels behind them. Zelle/Venmo/Cash App scams (the bank generally won’t reverse what you authorized), gift cards (the universal scammer currency, untraceable in seconds), fake delivery texts (the most common scam SMS in the U.S.), QR code “quishing,” wire fraud (the most expensive category by dollar value), and the fake-check overpayment scam that exploits the banking rule between “available” and “cleared.”

Impersonation, Investment & Emerging Scams

The newest and most convincing cons — AI that clones a loved one’s voice, fake tech-support and government calls, slick investment and prize scams — plus exactly what to do when a company you trust gets breached. Six guides to the threats that are catching people right now.

Latest Scams & Fraud Articles

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  Fake CAPTCHA Scam Warning: Do Not Click This Prompt
  A fake CAPTCHA scam uses a familiar verification screen to trick you into running malware on your own computer. Learn the one red flag that gives it away, what the scam can steal, and what to do if you already followed the prompt.
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  Bank Scam Warning: Don’t Withdraw Cash for This Call
  A caller claiming to be from your bank’s fraud department will never need you to withdraw cash and hand it to a stranger. Here is how the cash withdrawal scam works, the five warning signs to watch for, and what to do if you get one of these calls.
• 
  Facebook Settlement Check Coming June 9, Are You Getting One?
  A second round of Facebook privacy settlement payments is scheduled to begin June 9, 2026. Who qualifies, why the checks are only about six dollars, when they arrive in batches, and how to avoid the scams that follow settlement news.
• 
  FTC Warning: Fake Agents Are Targeting Scam Victims Again
  The FTC warns that scammers are posing as FTC agents to target people who already lost money, promising to recover the funds for an upfront fee. Here is how the recovery scam works, the red flags, and what to do.
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  Check-Washing Scams: How to Protect Your Money
  Check washing lets thieves erase the ink on a stolen check and rewrite it to themselves. Here’s how the scam works, the warning signs, and how to protect your mail and money.
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  What to Do After a Data Breach
  Got the breach notice? It’s a warning, not a disaster — and you have time to act. Understand what was exposed, change reused passwords, turn on two-factor, freeze your credit, and watch for the phishing wave that follows.

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Related Sections

Free Legal Aid Programs — If you’ve lost money to a scam and need legal help recovering it or asserting your rights.

How to Replace Your Social Security Card — If you suspect your SSN has been compromised.

How to Dispute a Credit Report Error — Recovering from fraudulent accounts that appear on your credit report.

Credit Score Basics — Understanding the score that fraud most damages, and how it recovers.

Credit & Debt — The full library of credit and debt management guides.

Banking — Banking guides including security features, dispute processes, and account protection.

Another Scam to Know