Is it a scam?
One page per pattern, not per company. The people selling these change names every couple of years; the pattern does not, and knowing the pattern is what protects you next time.
Every claim on these pages quotes the agency that wrote the rule, with a link, so you can check our paraphrase against the source rather than taking our word for it.
Are CPNs legal?
No. A "credit privacy number" is someone else’s Social Security number or a number obtained under false pretenses, and using one on a credit application is fraud.
Last verified · 1 primary source
Are forex signal groups a scam?
Not always — but the group is usually the business, not the trading. Before paying for signals, read what the CFTC publishes about the market they are signals for: two out of three retail forex customers lose money, and you are trading against your dealer rather than in an open market.
Last verified · 1 primary source
Can a trust make my income tax-free?
Not while you still control the money. Trusts are real and useful, but the packages sold to make business or personal income disappear from tax are a pattern the IRS has written about by name — and it taxes the income to whoever keeps control of it.
Last verified · 2 primary sources
Can anyone recover crypto you lost to a scam?
Almost never, and anyone who contacts you offering to is running the second scam. The FTC’s rule is short enough to memorize: never pay upfront for a refund or help with a refund.
Last verified · 1 primary source
Do aged shelf corporations get you business credit?
No. A company that has existed on paper and never done business has no business history to lend against — and presenting its age as operating history on a credit application is a false statement, not a shortcut.
Last verified · 3 primary sources
Do tradelines work?
Buying your way onto a stranger’s credit card as an authorized user is a pattern the FTC has repeatedly sued over, and it has never held that it is legal. Being added by someone who actually knows you, on an account you can actually use, is a different thing.
Last verified · 2 primary sources
Do vending routes really make that much?
Whoever is telling you the number has to hand you written proof of it, in a specific form, at least seven days before you pay anything. Ask for it. Most of the pitch does not survive the request.
Last verified · 1 primary source
Is Airbnb arbitrage legal?
It depends on two documents, and nobody selling you a course has read either of them: your lease, and your city’s short-term rental rules. Both are free to read today, and together they answer the question for your address in about an hour.
Last verified · 2 primary sources
Is credit stacking a scam?
Applying for several business cards is not illegal and you can do it yourself for nothing. What is being sold is the applying — usually for a percentage of whatever you are approved for — and the pitch around it is where the trouble is.
Last verified · 2 primary sources
Someone I met online wants to teach me to invest in crypto — is it a scam?
Yes. The FTC’s wording leaves no room in it: if you meet someone on a dating site or app and they want to show you how to invest in crypto, that is a scam. It does not matter how long you have been talking.
Last verified · 2 primary sources
Paste any pitch
A DM, a webinar offer, a coaching program, an ad. You get the same four answers this page gives — what it is, the catch, the free way, the red flags — about yours.
Reality Check opens on the website when Base888 launches. Until then, the patterns above walk through the pitches people ask about most.
More on the way. If there is a pattern you keep seeing and we have not written it up, the Drop is where we say what is coming next.