OneHaven Scam Library

The scams hitting families right now.

What each one looks like, the warning signs, what to do in the first hour if one turns out to be real, and every number and link you need to report it. Written plainly, free, and nothing on this page asks you for information.

Got a link you are unsure about? Paste it into our link checker. It runs on your own phone and we never see it.

Fraud losses in the United States reached about $16 billion in 2025, the highest on record. Below is what is actually being sent to people right now, separated by who it targets, along with the warning signs and what to do.

The one habit worth building

Never tap a link in a text. Go to the company yourself.

Not the link, not the phone number in the message, not the reply. If a text says there is a problem with your bank, your delivery, your insurance or your account, close it and go to that company the way you normally would. Open their app. Use your own bookmark. Type the address into the browser yourself. Call the number printed on your card or your paper bill.

If the problem is real, it will be waiting for you there. Every single time. A real alert is never only in a text message, it is also in your account. And if there is nothing there, there was never anything there.

This one habit defeats almost everything on this page, because none of it survives you arriving through your own front door instead of theirs. It takes about ten seconds.

How to spot a fake

If you are ever going to look closely at a message rather than just close it, these are the things worth looking at, roughly in the order they give a fake away.

Read the web address backwards

This is the most reliable check there is, and almost nobody knows it. The real owner of an address is the bit immediately to the left of the .com, not the first thing you read.

If you would rather have it checked for you, paste the link into our link checker. It runs entirely on your own phone and we never see the link.

yourbank.example/alerts/verify Real. The name sits right before the top level domain. Everything after the first slash belongs to them.
yourbank.secure-login-verify.example/alerts Fake. This address belongs to secure-login-verify.example. Your bank's name is only a label sitting in front of it, which anyone can put there.
yourbank-support.example Fake. An added word makes it a completely different address that anyone can buy for a few dollars.

Ask whether you were expecting it

A parcel you did not order. A toll on a road you have never driven. A refund for a subscription you do not have. A prize from a draw you never entered. That single question ends a surprising number of these before you look at anything else.

Look at who it came from

Real companies do not text you from an ordinary mobile number, and they do not text from an email address. A message that claims to be your bank but arrives from a random ten digit number, a number from another country, or something like [email protected], is not your bank.

Treat urgency as the signal, not the emergency

Today. Within the hour. Before midnight. Or your account closes, your service is cut off, your prize is reallocated. Genuine organizations move slowly and put things in writing. Pressure is there to stop you checking, so when you feel it, that is the moment to slow down rather than speed up.

Nobody legitimate needs your code, PIN or password

Not your bank, not support, not a platform, not a friend. A verification code sent to your phone is the key to your account. There is no situation in which a real person needs you to read it out.

Watch how they want to be paid

Gift cards. A cryptocurrency machine. A wire transfer. Gold. Cash handed to a courier at your door. Payment apps marked as friends and family. No real company, agency or police force collects money any of those ways, and none of them can be reversed. The payment method alone tells you what this is.

Check it somewhere else entirely

Do not reply to the message to find out whether the message is true. Open the app, ring the number on your card, or ask someone you trust. If it claims to be family, call them back on the number already in your phone.

Search the exact words

Copy a distinctive line from the message and search for it. These are sent to thousands of people at once, so if it is a known scam, other people have usually already written about it.

Trust the small wrong note

A greeting that does not use your name, or uses it oddly. Spacing or punctuation that feels slightly off. A logo that is a little wrong. A friend who does not quite sound like themselves. You do not need to explain why something feels strange to be allowed to stop and check.

Three rules that stop most of them

Almost every scam in this guide runs into at least one of these.

Nobody legitimate asks you to move money to keep it safe

Not a bank, not a government agency, not the police. A bank that believes your account is at risk freezes it. It does not ask you to empty it.

Hang up, then call back on a number you already had

The number on the back of your card. The number in your own contacts. Never a number from the message itself, and never by tapping to call back.

Gift cards, crypto machines, gold and couriers are never how real institutions collect money

If anyone directs you to a cryptocurrency ATM and sends you a QR code to scan, it is a scam. There is no legitimate version of that request.

The scams working right now

Reported fraud losses in the United States reached about $16 billion in 2025, the highest on record. These are the specific ones showing up most.

The safe account transfer

A call or text says your account has been compromised and the only way to protect your money is to move it, to a "secure account," to crypto, to gold, or into the hands of a courier. There is no safe account. This is now the single largest impersonation category, at roughly $1 billion reported in 2025.

Warning signs
  • Being told to move money in order to protect it
  • Being told to keep it secret from family, or from staff at your own bank
  • A courier coming to your home for cash, cards or gold
  • Being coached on what to say if the bank asks why you are withdrawing
What to do. Hang up. Do not call any number they gave you. Call the number printed on your card or your paper statement. Tell one other person before you move anything.
Tech support and the fake security warning

A pop-up or a call claims your device is infected. You call, they take remote control, and then either they charge you or the call escalates into a fake fraud investigation that empties your accounts. This was the third largest loss category in the country in 2025, at about $2.13 billion.

Warning signs
  • A security warning that includes a phone number. Real ones never do.
  • Any unsolicited contact telling you something is wrong with your computer
  • A request to install remote access software
  • A "refund" that was supposedly too large, with a request to send the difference back
What to do. Do not call the number. Close the browser, force quitting if it will not close. If you already gave someone access, disconnect from the internet, remove the software they installed, and change your passwords from a different device.
The family emergency call, and voice cloning

A voice that sounds like your grandchild says they have been in an accident or arrested and need money now, and please do not tell their parents. A few seconds of audio from a public video is enough to clone a voice convincingly.

Warning signs
  • A request for secrecy. It exists only to prevent the one phone call that would end it.
  • A second person taking over the call as a lawyer, bail bondsman or officer
  • Extreme time pressure, and discouragement from hanging up
  • A courier arriving to collect cash
What to do. Hang up and call the person back on the number you already have saved. If they answer, it was a scam. If you cannot reach them, call another family member. Do not stay on the line.
Investment and crypto romance fraud

A stranger makes contact, often by a wrong number text or a dating profile, and builds a genuine relationship over weeks. Then comes an investment on a professional looking platform. The platform is fake and the balance is a number on a screen. Investment fraud was the largest loss category in the country in 2025, at about $8.65 billion.

Warning signs
  • An early push to move the conversation to WhatsApp or Telegram
  • A small successful withdrawal early on, which exists to build confidence
  • Guaranteed or unusually steady returns
  • A fee, tax or release charge demanded before you can withdraw your own money
What to do. Stop paying. Do not pay the release fee, it is part of the scam. Report it with wallet addresses, amounts and dates. And expect a follow up call offering to recover your money, which is a second scam run by the same people.
Delivery, toll and other small amount texts

A text claims a package cannot be delivered or that you owe a small unpaid toll. The amount is tiny on purpose, because a small sum feels easier to settle than to question. This is the highest volume scam type in the country.

Warning signs
  • An oddly precise small amount, with a much larger late fee threatened
  • A package you are not expecting, or a road you have never driven
  • A lookalike web address
What to do. Do not tap. Check the account by typing the real address in yourself. Forward the scam text to 7726, which reports the number to your carrier, then delete it.
Health plan and free equipment offers

An unsolicited offer of free braces, catheters, genetic tests or a new insurance card, in exchange for your member number. Equipment you never ordered then gets billed to your plan, sometimes for years.

Warning signs
  • Any unsolicited offer of free medical equipment
  • Any caller asking for your Medicare or insurance number
  • Deliveries you did not order
  • Charges on your statement for items or visits you do not recognize
What to do. Never give your insurance or Medicare number to someone who contacted you. Read your statements, which is the step most people skip. Senior Medicare Patrol will review them with you for free at 877-808-2468.

If one of these is ever real, here is the first hour

Money first, because that is the only window that closes.

  1. Stop the money

    Card or bank transfer: call the number on the back of your card and say the word fraud. Payment app: report it in the app and call your bank. Gift cards: call the card issuer with the number and receipt and ask them to freeze it. Crypto: contact the exchange or machine operator. Speed matters more than anything else here.

  2. Never pay a fee to get money back

    A release charge, a tax, an unlock fee. That is the second scam, and almost every victim gets approached by it.

  3. Change your email password first

    Email is the master key, because every other reset runs through it. Then banking, then anything that reused the same password. Use a different device if the first one might be compromised.

  4. Check what they changed

    Mail forwarding rules, recovery phone numbers, new payees, new authorized devices. This is the step people skip, and it is how access gets kept after a password change.

  5. Freeze your credit at all three bureaus

    Free, no effect on your score, and it must be done three separate times. Equifax 888-298-0045, Experian 888-397-3742, TransUnion 800-916-8800.

  6. Report it, and get a recovery plan

    If personal details were exposed, IdentityTheft.gov builds a step by step plan and produces the report banks ask for. If the person affected is 60 or over, call the National Elder Fraud Hotline and a case manager will do much of this with you.

Where to get help

Every link and number here is current. Nothing on this page asks you for information.

Report a scam

Federal Trade Commission The main federal front door for reporting any scam. reportfraud.ftc.gov 877-382-4357
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center For anything online, and the right place for cryptocurrency losses. ic3.gov
Scam texts Forward the message to 7726 to report the number to your carrier. 7726

If you are 60 or over, or helping someone who is

National Elder Fraud Hotline Assigns you a named case manager who stays with you and files the reports on your behalf. Run by the Department of Justice. Free. ovc.ojp.gov 833-372-8311
AARP Fraud Watch Helpline Talk to a trained specialist about whether something is a scam. No membership needed. aarp.org 877-908-3360
Senior Medicare Patrol Free local help reviewing Medicare statements and reporting billing fraud. smpresource.org 877-808-2468

For anyone under 18

NCMEC CyberTipline Report sextortion, grooming or enticement. Staffed 24 hours. report.cybertip.org 1-800-843-5678
Take It Down Free removal of intimate images of someone who was under 18 at the time. The image never leaves the device. takeitdown.ncmec.org

Identity and credit

IdentityTheft.gov Reporting plus a personalized recovery plan, and the official report creditors ask for. identitytheft.gov 877-438-4338
Identity Theft Resource Center Free nonprofit help with identity theft and hacked accounts. idtheftcenter.org 888-400-5530

If this has you in a dark place

Sextortion in particular can feel like the end of everything, and it is not. It ends, usually quickly, once an adult knows. If you are struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential and available every hour of every day.

Call or text 988

Before you close this page, do one thing

Agree a family code word. It takes thirty seconds, it costs nothing, and it defeats voice cloning completely, which is the thing that has made the family emergency scam so effective.

  1. Pick a word together that has nothing to do with any of you. Not a pet, not a street, not a birthday, because those can be found.
  2. Tell everyone who might get the call. Grandparents especially.
  3. Agree the rule out loud: if someone calls in an emergency asking for money and cannot say the word, you hang up and call back.

An AI can clone a voice from a few seconds of video. It cannot know a word you agreed at the kitchen table.

Why someone sent you this

Someone in your family cared enough to find out whether a fake one would get through, while it was still safe to find out. That is worth a thank you more than an argument.

OneHaven is building quiet protection that works in the background for kids and for aging parents, watching for the language of a scam in progress and letting someone know. It never blocks anything and it never reads messages sent to you.

Join the waitlist