Investment & Cryptocurrency Scams

Investment fraud is the costliest form of internet crime by a wide margin, with cryptocurrency "confidence" schemes, often called pig butchering, leading the way. The FBI recorded $8.6 billion in investment fraud losses in 2025, and $11.3 billion in crypto-related losses across all crime types. Scammers spend weeks or months "fattening up" a victim with friendship or romance before steering them into a fake investment and draining their savings.

How It Works:

• The Approach: Contact starts with a "wrong number" text, a social media message, a dating app match, or an online investment group. The scammer builds a friendly or romantic relationship over weeks.
• The Pitch: They casually mention their success trading cryptocurrency, gold, or foreign exchange and offer to teach you, directing you to a professional-looking (but fake) trading platform or app.
• The Hook: Your dashboard shows impressive gains, and you may even be allowed to withdraw a small amount early, as proof that it "works," to encourage much larger deposits.
• The Squeeze: When you try to cash out, you're told you must first pay "taxes," "fees," or "penalties." Every payment leads to another demand until you stop paying, and the scammer and platform vanish.

Deepfake Endorsements:

A growing share of these schemes now begin with an advertisement rather than a person. Scammers generate video of well-known investors, news anchors, or business figures appearing to endorse a trading platform or a crypto giveaway, then run it as paid advertising on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. The footage looks like a real broadcast clip because it was built from one. Treat any investment opportunity that reaches you through a celebrity endorsement as fabricated until you can verify it independently, and see AI Deepfake & Voice Cloning Scams.

Key Red Flags:

• Guaranteed high returns with "zero risk." No legitimate investment can promise this.
• Investment advice from someone you have only ever met online.
• Pressure to act fast on an "exclusive" opportunity, or to move to apps like WhatsApp or Telegram.
• Platforms or apps that aren't listed in official app stores or registered with regulators.
• Being asked to pay fees or taxes before you can withdraw your own money.
• "Recovery agents" who contact victims afterward promising to get the money back, for a fee. This is a follow-up scam. See Recovery & Refund Scams.

How to Protect Yourself:

• Never invest on the advice of someone you've only met online, no matter how long you have been talking.
• Verify before you buy: Check that platforms and advisers are registered using FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC's Investor.gov.
• Test with skepticism, not money: A small successful withdrawal is a sales tactic, not proof of legitimacy.
• Keep it private: Never share account credentials or let anyone "trade on your behalf."