How We Research, Verify & Publish Scam Guides
The full methodology behind every guide on Scammers Expose — what data we use, how we verify it, how we test recovery procedures, and how we decide what to publish (and what to hold back).
Why Publish a Methodology Page?
Most scam-information sites don’t explain how they produce their content. Readers are asked to trust the output without seeing the process. We take a different approach: we publish our methodology in detail so that readers, journalists, researchers, and regulators can evaluate our work on its merits, not on our claims.
This page covers the same questions you should ask any source you rely on for high-stakes information:
- Where does the data come from?
- How is it verified before publication?
- How are conflicts of interest managed?
- What’s the editorial chain — who decides what gets published?
- How are errors handled and corrected?
- What’s deliberately excluded, and why?
Where Our Data Comes From
Every scam pattern we document is sourced from a combination of primary and secondary inputs. We weight them in this order of reliability:
1 — Official Authority Data
FTC Sentinel, FBI IC3, Action Fraud, UK Finance, ACCC Scamwatch, ASIC, RBI, Indian I4C, BKA, BaFin. These set our baseline understanding of scale, trends, and verified scam types.
2 — Direct Victim Reports
Reader emails and submissions through our Report a Scam form. These often surface emerging tactics before official authorities catch them.
3 — Public Forums & Social Media
Reddit r/Scams, Twitter/X threads, Facebook fraud-victim groups, Trustpilot reviews. Used for emerging-pattern detection — never as a sole source.
4 — Regulatory & Court Filings
SEC actions, FTC enforcement orders, FCA warnings, ASIC alerts, court documents. Used when naming specific entities or describing convicted operators.
5 — News Reporting
Investigative journalism from Reuters, AP, BBC, ProPublica, The Guardian, ABC, Hindustan Times, etc. Cross-referenced when claims need independent corroboration.
6 — Direct Testing & Observation
Where safe and legal, we observe scam mechanics directly — fake-shop pages, smishing landing pages, scam advertisement networks — to document them accurately.
Our Six-Step Verification Process
Before any scam guide is published, it goes through this process. We do not publish anything that fails verification — even if it seems plausible or other sites have published it.
Pattern identification
We observe a scam pattern across multiple independent inputs — typically 5+ victim reports, a regulatory advisory, or a news story plus supporting reader reports. Single anecdotes never trigger a guide.
Tactic reconstruction
We document the exact mechanics: first-contact channel, opening script, escalation pattern, payment method requested, withdrawal/exit pattern. Each stage is verified against multiple victim accounts.
Source cross-reference
We check the pattern against official authority advisories where available. Where authorities haven’t yet reported, we flag the guide as covering an emerging tactic and note the absence of official confirmation.
Recovery procedure verification
For every recovery step we recommend, we verify it works as described — checking current chargeback rules, reporting URLs, agency procedures, and country-specific reimbursement schemes against their current official documentation.
Editorial review
Each guide is reviewed for clarity, accuracy, victim-first tone, and adherence to our Editorial Standards. Guides that don’t meet the bar are rewritten or held.
Publish with timestamp
The guide is published with a “First published” date and a “Last reviewed” date. Every guide carries provenance metadata so readers can judge currency.
How We Cite & Link to Sources
Every published guide that references a statistic, official advisory, news event, or named entity includes a hyperlink to the primary source. We do not paraphrase data without attribution. Our citation rules:
- Statistics — always linked to the original authority publication (FTC Sentinel Data Book, NASC Targeting Scams Report, UK Finance Annual Fraud Report, etc.)
- Official advisories — linked to the regulator’s current public page
- News events — linked to the original investigative piece, not aggregator coverage
- Named individuals / entities — linked to court records, regulatory actions, or major news coverage that supports the claim (see Editorial Standards §5 for naming rules)
- External authorities — open in a new tab with
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How We Handle Emerging Scams
Emerging scams present a tension: publish early to warn potential victims vs wait for verified data to avoid false alarms. We resolve this with explicit transparency, not by picking one side.
Emerging-pattern flagging
Guides covering scams without official authority confirmation are flagged “Emerging pattern” and the absence of confirmation is stated in the article.
Provisional details
Where we publish before all details are verified, we say so. We use phrases like “based on early reports” or “victim accounts suggest” rather than asserting confirmed facts.
Continuous update commitment
Emerging-pattern guides are reviewed weekly until official confirmation emerges (or the pattern fades). Each review updates the “Last reviewed” date.
Retraction readiness
If an emerging pattern turns out to have been mischaracterised, we retract or substantially correct rather than silently rewriting. See our Corrections Policy.
What We Deliberately Don’t Publish
Methodology is about what gets excluded as much as what gets included. We do not publish:
- Step-by-step scam playbooks that could enable copycats. Where we explain mechanics, we focus on victim-side recognition, not the scammer’s operational details.
- Personal data of named victims — even with consent, unless the person is a public figure or has waived privacy in a separate public statement.
- Unverified accusations against specific individuals or businesses. Naming requires public-record evidence (court filings, regulatory actions, news coverage).
- Speculative content presented as fact. If we’re not sure, we say so.
- Recovery-service promotions of any kind. See our Anti-Recovery-Scam Pledge.
- Affiliate-driven product recommendations within scam coverage. See Editorial Standards §6.
- Content that exploits victim emotion — sensationalist headlines, fear-bait imagery, “horror story” framing without educational value.
Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure
Editorial independence is fundamental to this site. The conflicts we actively manage:
- Founder is sole researcher. Valentine Pereira researches, writes, and reviews most content. We mitigate single-author bias through external cross-reference (always citing back to authorities and named primary sources) and through explicit error-reporting routes for readers.
- No advertising relationships with recovery services, scam-adjacent platforms, or any party we cover in scam guides.
- No affiliate programmes on scam-related content. If we ever introduce affiliates in future, they will be transparently disclosed and never within scam coverage.
- No editorial influence from external parties. No company, government, sponsor, or organisation has approval rights over our content.
- Named-entity coverage. Where we name a company in scam coverage, that company has no role in editing or approving the content. We will accept a right-to-reply statement under our Corrections Policy but not editing rights.
Update Schedule & Content Currency
Scams evolve fast. Recovery procedures change. Government reporting URLs get rebranded. Our update cadence:
Active campaign guides — weekly review
Guides covering scams that are currently active and evolving get weekly checks against fresh victim reports and authority advisories.
Standard scam-anatomy guides — quarterly review
Established scam types (romance, advance fee, gift-card cons, etc.) reviewed every 3 months for tactic shifts and recovery-route changes.
Statistics & trends pages — quarterly
Our Scam Statistics page is updated quarterly as new authority reports are released.
Resource directories — quarterly
Country-specific reporting links and helpline numbers verified every quarter for changes, rebrands, or new authorities.
Trust pages — annual
Editorial Standards, Disclaimer, Privacy, Terms, Methodology — reviewed at least annually for regulatory changes, plus on any material change to operations.
Reader-flagged corrections — immediate
Any correction reported by a reader is investigated within 48 hours and fixed within 24 hours of verification. See Corrections Policy.
Why Independent Single-Researcher Operation?
Scammers Expose is run by one researcher rather than a team. This is a deliberate choice with trade-offs we openly acknowledge:
- Editorial coherence — a single voice that doesn’t drift between guides
- Zero internal pressure to grow audience metrics at the expense of accuracy
- Direct reader-to-researcher relationship via the contact inbox
- No commercial KPIs forcing volume over depth
- No backers to satisfy with monetisation strategies that compromise editorial
- Publishing volume is lower than larger teams could produce
- Single-author bias is real — mitigated through external cross-reference, reader correction routes, and transparent sourcing
- Response times for reader emails depend on one person’s availability — we aim for 48 hours but extreme weeks may extend this
- Country coverage depth varies — strongest where Valentine has direct experience (India, Germany) and where authority data is most accessible (US, UK, AU)
If this model ever changes — addition of contributors, external editorial input, or operational restructuring — it will be disclosed on the About page and reflected in updates to this methodology.
Holding Us Accountable
This methodology is meant to be auditable. Specific ways readers, journalists, and researchers can hold us accountable:
- Check our citations. Click through every linked source on any guide. If a citation doesn’t support the claim, email us.
- Test our recovery procedures. If a recovery step we recommend doesn’t work as described — wrong URL, changed agency procedure, outdated reimbursement rules — tell us so we can update.
- Compare our claims to authorities. Where we cite statistics, the underlying authority data is public. We welcome scrutiny.
- Report inconsistencies. If a guide contradicts our Editorial Standards or our Anti-Recovery-Scam Pledge, we want to know.
- Cite our weaknesses. If you’re a researcher or journalist using our work, please note where our methodology is weakest (single-researcher, geographic coverage variability) — we’d rather you cite us with caveats than not cite us.
For methodology questions, contact info@scammersexpose.com.
Have questions about how we work?
We welcome methodology critiques, source suggestions, and questions about specific guides. Transparency is the point.
Last reviewed: May 2026 · Reviewed annually + on material operational changes