Avoiding scams & financial fraud
Spot the trap before it springs
Scams are engineered by professionals to defeat smart, careful people — being targeted says nothing about you. This track teaches the universal red-flag pattern behind almost every scam, tours the big ones (phishing, fake checks, romance and 'guaranteed return' investment scams, impersonation, job scams) and their tells, lays out the free layered protections that lock down accounts and identity, and walks the calm response when fraud happens. Warm, judgment-free, never pushy.
4 lessons · about 29 minutes total · 100% free
Saved on this device only — no account needed.
1. The anatomy of a scam
Almost every scam, no matter how it's dressed up, runs the same three-part play: manufactured urgency, a demand for secrecy, and an unusual way to pay. This lesson takes apart that pattern so it's easy to spot in the moment — why scammers engineer panic to switch off careful thinking, how real institutions actually reach out, and the simple 'urgency + secrecy + weird payment = stop' filter. A worked example walks through a scam phone script line by line and names every red flag.
7 min read
2. Common scams and how they work
A guided tour of the scams people actually run into: phishing and smishing texts, the fake-check overpayment trick, romance scams, 'guaranteed return' investment and crypto pitches, impersonation of the IRS, banks, and tech support, and too-good-to-be-true job offers. For each one, this lesson lays out what it promises and the single tell that gives it away — so the category is recognizable even when the specific story is brand new. Purely educational, with concrete examples and dollar amounts.
8 min read
3. Protecting your accounts and identity
Spotting scams is defense; this lesson is about the locks. It explains how layered protection works — strong, unique passwords and the password-manager concept, two-factor authentication (and why an app code beats an SMS code), the credit freeze as the single strongest and totally free shield against new-account fraud, the habit of monitoring statements and credit reports, and why email is the master key worth guarding hardest. A worked example assembles these layers into one realistic setup.
8 min read
4. What to do if it happens
Even careful people get caught — and what happens next matters more than how it started. This lesson lays out the calm response as a sequence: stop contact, document everything, reach the bank or card issuer, place a fraud alert or freeze, report to the FTC at IdentityTheft.gov and the FBI's IC3, dispute the fraudulent charges, and change exposed credentials. It explains why fast action limits how much someone is liable for, and why shame — not the scam — is what most often keeps people from reporting. How-it-works framing throughout.
6 min read