How Our Data Works

1. Sources

• Public community reports. 88,000+ posts from public fraud-reporting communities (Reddit: r/scams, r/Scams, r/fraud), covering June 2025 – June 2026. We store the public text only; we do not scrape private messages or profiles.
• Security news. 7 established security publications, collected daily at 06:00 UTC. 4,100+ items to date.
• Explainer videos. 25 search queries in 10 languages on YouTube, from which we extract how each scheme works step by step. 268 videos, 34 documented patterns.
• User submissions. Anonymous reports through our form. Submissions are automatically screened and reviewed before anything derived from them is published.

The live registry of feeds is on the Sources page.

2. Classification

Each report is processed by an AI classifier that assigns a scam type (one of 15: phishing, romance scam, employment scam, crypto scam, investment fraud, bank impersonation, government impersonation, AI/deepfake, pig butchering, QR phishing, rental scam, advance fee, crypto recovery, tech support, grandparent scam), the victim's country when it is stated, the platform where contact happened, and a short neutral summary of the script.

Reports where the type cannot be determined with confidence stay unclassified and are excluded from statistics. As of September 2026, 8,300+ reports carry a confident type; the rest are stored but not counted.

3. Publication thresholds

• A scam type × country page is published only when we hold at least 5 real reports for that combination. Combinations below the threshold are not published at all.
• Country pages show counts only for types with data; empty categories are hidden, not zero-filled.
• Localized versions (RU/DE/ES) exist for guides and country pages. Type × country detail pages are English-only, because the underlying reports are in English.

4. Known limitations

• Self-reported data. We cannot verify individual claims. Counts show how often a scheme is reported, not how often it happens.
• Sampling bias. Community sources are English-speaking and US-heavy; other countries are under-represented.
• Time window. Community reports currently cover June 2025 – June 2026. News and video sources update daily.
• Automation. Classification is automated. Errors happen; see the corrections process on our Editorial Policy page.

5. Update cadence

News: daily. Weekly digest: Mondays. Guides and statistics: rebuilt daily from the database. Each page's lastmod in our sitemap changes only when its content actually changes.