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Welcome to Stamp Out Scams, Inc!

We are a not-for-prof­it busi­ness com­mit­ted to iden­ti­fy­ing and expos­ing scams and scam­mers from around the world.  There are no fees or charges to use this site.  Our main goal is to assist the pub­lic and reduce the num­ber of per­sons and busi­ness­es vic­tim­ized by scams.  We expect to be a rec­og­nized “non-prof­it 501(c)(3)” in the very near future.  Our appli­ca­tion is cur­rent­ly being reviewed.  Please  watch for updates on our 501(c)(3) here.
Our site founder is a for­mer finan­cial crimes inves­ti­ga­tor and is cur­rent­ly a licensed Cal­i­for­nia Pri­vate Inves­ti­ga­tor. He is not active­ly con­duct­ing pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tions, nor was this site cre­at­ed to adver­tise his inves­tiga­tive ser­vices. His goal in cre­at­ing this site is to pro­vide an on-going non-prof­it resource to the pub­lic for doing research rel­a­tive to cur­rent and on-going scams.
Mr. Hen­ley’s cre­den­tials as a retired finan­cial crimes inves­ti­ga­tor, and as a licensed Cal­i­for­nia P.I., are cit­ed as reas­sur­ance to the pub­lic that this site was cre­at­ed and over­seen by some­one with the exper­tise and back­ground to car­ry-out this effort.  Please vis­it Mr. Hen­ley’s pro­file here.
About Us
Con­tact Us
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Using data to pro­tect!
Lever­ag­ing 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 1,680,000,000 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. 
We take the mass amount of scam data fed into our site and fil­ter it down.  This fil­ter­ing is  impor­tant so that this data becomes a more man­age­able and use­ful resource for our users.  Scam infor­ma­tion is then search­able via any of our numer­ous “Scam Search” bars.  These search bars are con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed through­out our web­site, includ­ing direct­ly below.
When you vis­it all the oth­er pages on our site, start­ing with our “About” page, you will find a scroll at the top of these pages.  This scroll is our “Scam Tick­er” and is exact­ly as it sounds.  It scrolls cur­rent scam data in an on-going basis.  Click­ing on any of the par­tic­u­lar tick­er head­lines will bring our users direct­ly to the site pro­vid­ing the scam infor­ma­tion.
OUR CORE GOALS!
Expos­ing scams and cons from around the world!
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.  Our goals is to present this data in an eas­i­ly search­able form, with­out hav­ing to scour numer­ous search engines or web­sites.
On a dai­ly basis, scam data is fed direct­ly into our site from over 46 data sources. These scam data sources include Google, FBI, IRS, Secret Ser­vice, FTC, Twit­ter, BBB, AARP, SEC and numer­ous oth­er impor­tant scam infor­ma­tion sources.
None of our data is priv­i­leged gov­ern­ment infor­ma­tion or sourced from non-pub­lic sources.  It is read­i­ly avail­able pub­lic infor­ma­tion!  We make it more use­ful by bring­ing it into our site for easy search and retrieval.
Our BLOG POSTS PAGE con­tains scam relat­ed data from over 46 exter­nal sources.  This data con­tains scam data rel­e­vant to spe­cif­ic cur­rent and ongo­ing scams.  This data is specif­i­cal­ly request­ed by our site because it is infor­ma­tion that we have deter­mined as hav­ing the high­est neg­a­tive impact on con­sumers and there­by most use­ful.
Scam top­ics fed into our blog page includes, Ama­zon scams, COVID-19 scams, cryp­tocur­ren­cy scams, dat­ing app scams, finan­cial scams, iden­ti­ty theft, Inter­net scams, invest­ment scams, medicare scams, pig-butcher­ing scams, senior scams, romance scams and a host of oth­er preva­lent and ongo­ing scams.
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OUR STRATEGY
Using data to com­bat scams!
With the abun­dances of devices in today’s world,  the amount of dig­i­tal data avail­able is more than any oth­er time in his­to­ry.  This data is vital in the war against scam­mers.   Below are three dig­i­tal tools used to com­bat scam­mers.  Each of these scam data sources are fed direct­ly into our site and search­able via our Scam Search Engine.
YouTube
YouTube is an excel­lent tool for com­bat­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of scams.  Please watch our scam relat­ed videos by vis­it­ing  our YouTube Page or by
 click­ing below  to go direct­ly to our  YouTube chan­nel.  Our YouTube chan­nel is appro­pri­ate­ly named SCAMTV, because our pro­gram­ming is ‘must-see” scam pre­ven­tion pro­gram­ming.
SCAM TV
Iden­ti­ty Breach Check
The Iden­ti­ty Theft Resource Cen­ter (ITRC) is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion estab­lished to min­i­mize risk and mit­i­gate the impact of com­pro­mised iden­ti­ties. Click below to see if your e‑mail or phone num­ber have been breached.
BREACH CHECK
Scam Alerts
Stay atop on cur­rent scams by get­ting scam alert noti­fi­ca­tions.  One great site to sub­scribe to and get scam alert noti­fi­ca­tions via e‑mail.  Click below to sign-up for e‑mail alerts from the FTC.  It’s a great free ser­vice with extreme­ly use­ful scam relat­ed infor­ma­tion.  
FTC Scam Alerts
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.
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.
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SCAMMER HALL OF FAME
“I can see a scam­mer from a mile away!”
Have you or some­one else you know every 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
Track­ing how scams sta­tis­tics are bro­ken down
In 2021, the Con­sumer Sen­tinel Net­work took in over 5.7 mil­lion reports, an increase from 2020.   As rep­re­sent­ed in the pie chart, Fraud account­ed for 49% of the reports, Iden­ti­ty theft account­ed for 25% and Oth­er Crimes account­ed for 27%.

In 2021, peo­ple report­ed los­ing over $5.8 bil­lion to fraud.  An increase of $2.4 bil­lion over 2020.  The FTC received 395,848 reports from peo­ple who said their infor­ma­tion was mis­used to apply for a gov­ern­ment ben­e­fit such as unem­ploy­ment insur­ance.

Oth­er scams include cred­it cards, debt col­lec­tion, bank and lenders, cyber threats, com­put­er equip­ment and soft­ware.

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Expos­ing scam­mers visu­al­ly!
Expos­ing the face of scam­mers through YouTube.
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.
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.…
Amazon logo from Stamp Out Scams
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…
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Fre­quent­ly Asked Ques­tions
Get all the impor­tant answers 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, even after my law enforce­ment career has end­ed.

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.

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.

What does your “Scam Search” bar do?

This “Scam Search” bar is an impor­tant tool for our web­site.  Since we have scam feeds from numer­ous sources (AARP, BBB, FBI, IRS, SEC, Blog Posts, etc.), our search tool will scan those feeds and post­ings for scam relat­ed infor­ma­tion.  Cur­rent­ly there are over 45 data sources fed dai­ly into our site.

How do I use the Scam Search Engine?

Our Scam Search Engine is very sim­ple to use.  If you’re look­ing for infor­ma­tion rel­a­tive to a par­tic­u­lar scam, for exam­ple “Romance Scams,” sim­ply type that term in any of our search bars.  The rest of the work is done behind the scenes.  Any data rel­a­tive to “Romance Scams” that has been fed into our site will be includ­ed in your search results.
SCAMMER & SCAMS
Blog Post­ings
Direct­ly below are blog post­ings from both inter­nal and exter­nal sources.   Exter­nal post­ings are from exter­nal sources, such as Google Alerts, BBB, AARP, IRS, FBI, SEC and numer­ous oth­er sources.  This infor­ma­tion is all scam relat­ed.  None of this data con­tains con­fi­den­tial gov­ern­ment infor­ma­tion.  All of the data is read­i­ly avail­able pub­lic infor­ma­tion.  It is fed direct­ly into our site so users can access this scam data via our Scam Search Engine bars.  These search engine bars are locat­ed through­out our site, includ­ing direct­ly above.  Our goal in sourc­ing all this data into our site is to serve as a one-stop data source.
No need to hunt through all our blog post­ings for infor­ma­tion rel­a­tive to a par­tic­u­lar scam or go to mul­ti­ple search engines.  It is as easy as typ­ing in your search term, such as “pig-butcher­ing scam” and you get results instant­ly from data sources fed direct­ly into our site.
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