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WELCOME TO STAMP OUT SCAMS

“Empowering individuals through education and
resources to identify, prevent, and eradicate fraud
for a safer, scam-free society for all.”

SCAM PREVENTION EXPERTS

Stamp Out Scams is reg­is­tered non-prof­it scam pre­ven­tion orga­ni­za­tion, com­mit­ted to com­bat­ting the ever-grow­ing prob­lem of scams and scam­mers.  We are the pre­mier scam pre­ven­tion experts.

Our mis­sion is to equip you with the tools, knowl­edge, and sup­port nec­es­sary to nav­i­gate today’s com­plex land­scape of scams, frauds and deception.The back­bone of our team is a net­work com­prised of retired law enforce­ment.  Their expe­ri­ence con­duct­ing finan­cial crime inves­ti­ga­tions and com­bat­ting real-world crimes, makes them unique­ly qual­i­fied to cause dis­rup­tion through­out the scam­ming world.  We are tru­ly a team of scam pre­ven­tion experts.

We tru­ly believe that Stamp Out Scams offers an unpar­al­leled lev­el of exper­tise and com­mit­ment to world­wide scam fight­ing efforts.  Your gen­er­ous dona­tions are great­ly appre­ci­at­ed and will help tremen­dous­ly with our scam pre­ven­tion efforts.

Please vis­it our Impact of Giv­ing page for more infor­ma­tion about how we respon­si­bly uti­lize all donor funds in com­bat­ing scams and frauds.  Your dona­tions help us grow our net­work of  retired law enforce­ment and pro­vide the best scam pre­ven­tion experts avail­able.

 

 

"Graphic depicting a cloud effect filled with locks, symbolizing enhanced security in partnerships and collaborations for Stamp Out Scams Inc
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THE POWER OF THE INTERNET
Unfor­tu­nate­ly there is a pro­lif­er­a­tion of scams going on around the world.  Try doing a search on “scams” in Google and see what hap­pens.  This sim­ple search will like­ly result in 2,080,000,000 results or more.  
We use the mass amount of scam relat­ed infor­ma­tion avail­able via Google and numer­ous oth­er sites in an attempt to iden­ti­fy and expose ongo­ing scams.  Using this data helps us stay ahead of the scam­mers and con­tin­ue as the pre­mier scam pre­ven­tion experts.
THE TIME IS NOW
The time is now to take a stand against the ever-increas­ing lev­el of scams in our every­day lives.  Thank­ful­ly, in this dig­i­tal age, there’s not a short­age of data doc­u­ment­ing the scams preva­lent in our soci­ety.  We to present this data in an eas­i­ly search­able form, with­out hav­ing to scour numer­ous search engines or web­sites.  This will make scam pre­ven­tion more effi­cient and more acces­si­ble.
Our mis­sion is to tack­le a wide spec­trum of scams that exploit the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of dif­fer­ent sec­tors of soci­ety.  From romance scams that manip­u­late indi­vid­u­als seek­ing com­pan­ion­ship, to senior scams that specif­i­cal­ly prey on our aging pop­u­la­tion, we aim to raise aware­ness and pro­vide pre­ven­tive mea­sures for all.
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LEVERAGING THE POWER OF YOUTUBE, FUNDRAISING & OUTREACH!
As men­tioned pre­vi­ous­ly, a  search of the word “scam” in Google will net 1,290,000,000 results.  While there is no lack of infor­ma­tion on scams, search results are not going to help pre­vent scams.
This is where Stamp Out Scams steps-in.  We want to uti­lize our YouTube Chan­nel (ScamTV), fundrais­ing and speak­ing out­reach in our scam pre­ven­tion efforts.  Stop­ping scams is our dri­ving pas­sion and being the scam pre­ven­tion experts our soci­ety needs.
Below are the core strate­gies we uti­lize in imple­ment­ing our scam pre­ven­tion efforts:
ScamTV: A Beacon of Scam Awareness
YouTube
YouTube is an excel­lent tool for com­bat­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of scams.  Please watch our scam relat­ed videos by
 click­ing below.  It is “must-see” scam pro­gram­ming!
SCAM TV
Fundrais­ing
Fundrais­ing is the life-blood of any non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion.  Thanks to the gen­eros­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als like you, we  are con­fi­dent we will be able to make a tan­gi­ble dif­fer­ence in count­less lives
Fundrais­ing
A man stands assertively in front of a large computer screen, holding a bullhorn. The screen displays various icons and images representing scams. This image symbolizes Stamp Out Scams Inc.'s proactive outreach program to educate and empower individuals against fraud
Out­reach
Do you have a group, sem­i­nar or con­fer­ence where the top­ic of scams and scam pre­ven­tion would be an appro­pri­ate tar­get, please let us know.  We would be hap­py to send one of our skilled speak­ers to address your group.
Out­reach
Scam­mers will say there’s a PROBLEM or a PRIZE.
Scam­mers PRESSURE you to act imme­di­ate­ly.
Scam­mers PRETEND to be from an orga­ni­za­tion you know.
Scam­mers tell you to PAY in a spe­cif­ic way.

THE SCAMMER PLAYBOOK

Rec­og­niz­ing these four com­mon steps of scam­mers can help you from being vic­tim­ized.
 Through­out his­to­ry, scam­mers have relied on a fair­ly stan­dard play­book.  These plays have occurred through­out scam­mer his­to­ry, and con­tin­ue today.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in this dig­i­tal age, scams are much eas­i­er to imple­ment and much more plen­ti­ful.  So due dili­gence is more impor­tant than any oth­er time in his­to­ry.  The neces­si­ty for a net­work of qual­i­fied scam pre­ven­tion experts is more impor­tant than ever.
Even mod­ern-day scams use some of the same tech­niques they have used through­out his­to­ry.  Four of these scam­mer play­book calls are list­ed here. These tech­niques are now usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by mod­ern-day pay­ment tech­nolo­gies like Zelle, Ven­mo and Cryp­tocur­ren­cy.
SCAMMER ROADMAP
Famous Scams In His­to­ry
1899 — Sell­ing of the Brook­lyn Bridge
The naive and gullible have long been taunt­ed with the phrase, “If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” The state­ment is actu­al­ly an homage to the long line of con artists who began “sell­ing” the Brook­lyn Bridge almost as soon as it was com­plet­ed in 1883.
1920 — Charles Ponzi cre­ates the “Ponzi Scheme”
Scams that use pay­ments from new “investors” to sat­is­fy promis­es made to pre­vi­ous victims—are known as Ponzi schemes. The most famous con artist in mod­ern his­to­ry, Charles Ponzi raked in $15 mil­lion over the course of 18. Ponzi was just shuf­fling mon­ey from one per­son to the next while keep­ing most for him­self.
Jacob Bak­er Estate Con — 1936
In Decem­ber 1936, 28 peo­ple were indict­ed in what was then the biggest mail fraud scheme in his­to­ry. Swindlers col­lect­ed $3 mil­lion from 3,000 peo­ple who paid to stake their claims in a large estate. In real­i­ty, there was no Jacob Bak­er, and no such estate ever exist­ed.
1969 — Catch Me If You Can
Frank Abag­nale Jr., tar­get­ed indi­vid­u­als and small busi­ness­es as easy scam­ming tar­gets. He was quite suc­cess­ful at it until he was final­ly arrest­ed. After spend­ing time in prison, Abag­nale turned his scam skills into doing good. He is now one of the world’s most respect­ed author­i­ties on the sub­jects of forgery, embez­zle­ment and secure doc­u­ments.
1973 — The Dale: A Scam On 3 Wheels
In the 1970s, dur­ing the height of the gas cri­sis, a con artist named Geral­dine Eliz­a­beth Carmichael cre­at­ed the 20th Cen­tu­ry Motor Car Cor­po­ra­tion and unveiled the “Dale.” Claim­ing 70 mpg, the futur­is­tic-look­ing, three-wheeled car quick­ly attract­ed $30 mil­lion in invest­ment and $3 mil­lion in advance sales. Turned out that there were no man­u­fac­tur­ing plants, no research-and-devel­op­ment facil­i­ties, no pro­duc­tion plans, and no car.
1986 — ZZZZ Best Clean­ers
ZZZZ Best Clean­ers founder Bar­ry Minkow took his car­pet-clean­ing com­pa­ny pub­lic, and the firm was quick­ly val­ued at more than $300 mil­lion. Just sev­en months lat­er, it was revealed that ZZZZ Best Clean­ers was actu­al­ly a front for a Ponzi scheme. The com­pa­ny went bank­rupt, its assets were liq­ui­dat­ed and Minkow was sen­tenced to 25 years in prison.
2002 — Reed Slatkin
In 2002, Reed Slatkin plead­ed guilty to 15 counts relat­ed to a Ponzi scheme he ran for 15 years that snared 800 wealthy investors who dumped near­ly $600 mil­lion into the scam. The co-founder of Earth­Link and an ordained Sci­en­tol­ogy min­is­ter, Slatkin had high-lev­el con­tacts in both Hol­ly­wood and the tech world. He was sen­tenced to 14 years in prison.
2008 — Bernie Mad­off
In 2008, a lit­tle less than 90 years after Charles Ponzi became famous for the swin­dle that bears his name, Bernie Mad­off Ponzi scheme was exposed. Unbe­liev­ably, he was once con­sid­ered to be one of the world’s great­est investors. In 2009, Mad­off plead­ed guilty to engi­neer­ing the biggest Ponzi scheme in his­to­ry. His scam amount­ed to $19 bil­lion, much of which rep­re­sent­ed the life sav­ings of his close friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers.
2015 Eliz­a­beth Holmes
Holmes is an Amer­i­can for­mer biotech­nol­o­gy entre­pre­neur con­vict­ed of crim­i­nal fraud. In 2003, Holmes found­ed and was the chief exec­u­tive offi­cer (CEO) of Ther­a­nos, a now-defunct health tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that soared in val­u­a­tion after the com­pa­ny claimed to have rev­o­lu­tion­ized blood test­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the com­pa­ny was built on a bed of lies and decep­tion. Ulti­mate­ly the blood test­ing tech­nol­o­gy was exposed as noth­ing but a huge scam.
Man Standing Upright Hold A Flag
Blue Rocket Flying Upwards With Flames
SCAMMER HALL OF FAME
“I can see a scam­mer from a mile away!”
Have you or some­one else you know ever utter the line “I can see a scam­mer from a mile away?”  Well, meet some famous All-Stars from the Scam­mer Hall of Fame.  Each of them looks per­fect­ly nor­mal!  Yet, com­bined they have scammed mil­lions of dol­lars around the world.  Along the way, they man­aged to have fooled some very intel­li­gent peo­ple.   
Picture of Billy McFarland from Stamp Out Scams
Bil­ly McFar­land
Con­cert Promoter/Con Artist
Christopher Rocancourt picture from Stamp Out Scams
Christo­pher Rocan­court
French Nobleman/Con Artist
Picture of Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani from Stamp Out Scams
Har­gob­ind Pun­jabi Tahilra­mani
Movie Promoter/Con Artist
Anna Sorokin picture from Stamp Out Scams
Anna Sorokin
Philantrophist/Con Artist
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  • Fraud
  • Iden­ti­ty Theft
  • Oth­er Scams
THE SCAMMER PIE CHART
Scam sta­tis­tic break­down
In 2022, the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC), report­ed con­sumer loss­es to fraud and scams total­ing over $8.8 bil­lion.  This rep­re­sents a 30% increase from 2021.  The biggest los­es were to invest­ment scams, includ­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cy schemes.
As shown in the pie chart, Fraud account­ed for 49% of the reports.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the amount of esti­mat­ed loss­es is prob­a­bly low, because many vic­tims do not report their crimes.  There are many rea­sons for vic­tims not report­ing their loss­es, includ­ing guilt and embar­rass­ment.
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Expos­ing scam­mers visu­al­ly!
Expos­ing the scam­mers!
We want to beat the scam­mers at their own game and expose them for the cons that they are.  Thank­ful­ly, YouTube offers a per­fect vehi­cle for expos­ing scam­mers and their scams.  On our YouTube chan­nel we break­down scams and oth­er scam relat­ed infor­ma­tion into a under­stand­able, but com­pre­hen­sive for­mat.  Our sim­ple, yet expe­ri­enced, approach to stop­ping scams, is what helps makes us the pre­mier scam pre­ven­tion experts that we are.
Oth­er YouTu­bers are also strik­ing out and expos­ing scams. Be sure and vis­it our YouTube Chan­nel and all the oth­er scam relat­ed scam chan­nels to learn more.
ScamTV
Stamp Out Scams has des­ig­nat­ed their YouTube Chan­nel as ScamTV. We tru­ly believe it is must watch TV if you are look­ing to avoid scams and scam­mers.
Scammer’s Revolt
YouTu­ber who is known for call­ing tech sup­port, refund, and tax rev­enue scam­mers and mess­ing around with them. He typ­i­cal­ly uses the alias­es “Rodger” or “Dave” when pro­vid­ing mock infor­ma­tion. It is “scam­tas­tic fun.”
Kit­bo­ga
Anoth­er fan­tas­tic YouTube chan­nel where scam­mers get their pay­back. Watch and cheer on the “good guys.”
Scam­baiter
Scam­bait­ing videos where they destroy scam­mers and their oper­a­tions. This is done after hack­ing the scam­mer’s com­put­er. Lot’s of hack­ing fun!
SCAM CAROUSEL
POPULAR ON-GOING SCAMS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT 
Cars are not the only thing that goes “Fast and Furi­ous.”  New scams gen­er­ate at the same speed.  They come at a “Fast and Furi­ous” pace.  
Here at Stamp Out Scams, one of our goals is to high­light and expose the lat­est scams.  Each of the scams iden­ti­fied is also a click­able link for addi­tion­al details about the scam.
Tax law icon From Stamp Out Scams
Local Tax Impos­tors
Scam­mers are imper­son­at­ing state, coun­ty and munic­i­pal law enforce­ment and tax col­lec­tion agen­cies to get you to share sen­si­tive per­son­al infor­ma­tion or.…
Bitcoin logo from Stamp Out Scams
Cryp­tocur­ren­cy ATM Pay­ments
Those ATMs crop­ping up in con­ve­nience stores, gas sta­tions and big retail­ers are scam­mers’ newest pay­ment method. Pre­tend­ing to be gov­ern­ment offi­cials.…
For rent sign Stamp Out Scams
Rental Assis­tance Cons
With bil­lions of dol­lars in rental assis­tance flow­ing to states, a fed­er­al agency warned this week that scam­mers are using texts to deceive renters and prey on peo­ple in need…
Google Voice Logo from Stamp Out Scams
Google Voice Scam
The scam­mers con­tact you and say they want to buy the item you’re sell­ing.…
Online Advertising icon for Stamp Out Scams
Fake-Job Frauds
Scam­mers har­vest con­tact info and per­son­al details from résumés post­ed on legit job web­sites like Indeed, Mon­ster and Career­Builder.…
Fake Ama­zon Employ­ee
One-third of busi­­ness-impos­­tor fraud com­plaints involve scam­mers claim­ing they’re from Ama­zon, the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) reports.…
Gift Cards icon from Stamp Out Scams
Favor for a Friend Gift Cards

You receive an email from a friend ask­ing for a quick favor. She’s hav­ing trou­ble with a cred­it card or store account and, annoy­ing­ly, can’t buy a gift card…

Venmo logo from Stamp Out Scams
P2P Pay­ment Requests
Scam­mers are increas­ing­ly demand­ing pay­ment via mon­ey-tran­s­fer apps like Ven­mo, Zelle and Cash App. It’s so con­ve­nient — you pay in sec­onds from…
Zelle logo from Stamp Out Scams
Zelle Scam
Zelle scams are becom­ing more and more preva­lent.  It is impor­tant that con­sumers under­stand how the Zelle scam works…
Woman Sitting At Desk Working On Computer
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Blue Background With Stars
Fre­quent­ly Asked Ques­tions
Get all the impor­tant answers here!

IS STAMP OUT SCAMS A NON-PROFIT ORGANZATION RECOGNIZED BY THE IRS

Yes, Stamp Out Scams has non-prof­it sta­tus under code sec­tion 501(c)(3).  So any dona­tions you make to our scam pre­ven­tion cause are tax deductible.  Please feel free to view our IRS 501(c)(3) approval let­ter here.

Why was this website created?

As the cre­ator of this web­site, I can state emphat­i­cal­ly that I put it togeth­er to help peo­ple avoid scams! Hav­ing spent 25 years in law enforce­ment, I saw my share of vic­tim­iza­tion.  So this web­site helps me do my part, with the help of your gen­er­ous dona­tions.

Is there a charge or fees to use this website?

There is no charge or any fees to use this web­site.  Stamp Out Scams is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion com­mit­ted to expos­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing on-goirg scams.

What are the sites qualifications to address scams?

This site is over­seen my a licensed Cal­i­for­nia Pri­vate Inves­ti­ga­tor (CA PI License # 27495).  While the sites founder is not a prac­tic­ing inves­ti­ga­tor, he has over 25 years inves­ti­gat­ing finan­cial crimes as a spe­cial agent with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.  We have access to a net­work of cur­rent and retired law enforce­ment offi­cials with the exper­tise and expe­ri­ence to assist in our scam pre­ven­tion efforts.

HOW DOES THE SITE ACCESS EXTERNAL SCAM DATA SOURCES

Our site has scam feeds from numer­ous sources includ­ing AARP, BBB, FBI, Google Alerts, Blog Posts, Scam Videos, Stamp Out Scams YouTube chan­nel and numer­ous oth­er sources.  This data is fed seam­less­ly into our site on a dai­ly basis.  So scam data accessed via our site is as cur­rent as pos­si­ble.

ARE ALL THE VIDEOS ON YOUR SCAMTV PAGE PRODUCED BY STAMPOUTSCAMS

No!  While Stam­pOutScams pro­duces their own videos, our SCAMTV page has a mix of videos pro­duced by numer­ous oth­er exter­nal sources.  While they are not pro­duced exclu­sive­ly for Stam­pOutScams, we include them our site because they have rel­e­vant and impor­tant scam infor­ma­tion.  These videos should be exposed to as broad an audi­ence as pos­si­ble so the scams can also be exposed.
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