The investment that only goes up

This is the biggest one by money, and it isn't close.

Americans over 60 reported $3.5 billion in investment fraud losses to the FBI in 2025 — nearly half of all elder fraud losses that year. Most of it involved cryptocurrency, and most of it began as a relationship.

How it works now

The old picture — a pushy broker cold-calling about a hot stock — is out of date.

The modern version, sometimes called "pig butchering" for reasons that tell you everything about how its operators think, takes months.

1. A relationship first. A wrong-number text. A LinkedIn message. A dating app. A Facebook group about gardening or faith or grief. Weeks or months of ordinary friendship, no mention of money.

2. Wealth mentioned casually. They're doing well. Not selling anything — they just have an uncle in the business, or a system, or a platform they use. When you ask, they're a little reluctant to explain. That reluctance is the sales pitch.

3. A small test investment. A few hundred dollars. The platform is beautiful — a real website, an app, charts, statements, customer support. Your balance goes up. You withdraw a small profit, easily. This withdrawal is the key move in the entire scheme. It converts you from cautious to confident, and everything after it is downhill.

4. Bigger. Retirement accounts. A home equity line. Loans. Your balance on screen becomes extraordinary. None of it exists. The website is a puppet display showing numbers they type.

5. The exit. You try to withdraw. Suddenly there's a tax. A fee. An audit. Your account is frozen for compliance. Pay $30,000 to release $400,000. People pay it, because the alternative is admitting the $400,000 was never there.

There is no $400,000. There never was.

Every version has these

• Guaranteed returns. Nothing legitimate guarantees a return. Nothing. The word "guaranteed" in an investment pitch is, by itself, sufficient evidence.
• Consistent gains. Real markets move down some months. A chart that only climbs is a drawing.
• Urgency. A closing window, a limited allocation, a price about to jump.
• Complexity as credential. Arbitrage, mining, AI trading, liquidity pools. If explaining it makes you feel foolish for asking, that's intentional.
• Off-platform payment. Crypto, wire, an app. Not a brokerage you've heard of.
• A person, not a firm. Your contact is someone you know from somewhere else.

Two checks that take ten minutes

Check the person. Every legitimate investment professional in the United States is registered and searchable:

• brokercheck.finra.org — brokers
• adviserinfo.sec.gov — investment advisers
• Or call 800-289-9999 (FINRA) and ask

Not there? They cannot legally sell you an investment. That's the end of it.

Check the firm. Search the company name plus the word "scam" or "review." Then check how old the website is — a "20-year-old firm" with a domain registered four months ago is not a 20-year-old firm.

Crypto specifics

Cryptocurrency isn't itself a scam, but it is the preferred vehicle, for one reason: transactions cannot be reversed. No bank to call, no chargeback, no recall.

Additional rules:

• Nobody legitimate walks you through a Bitcoin ATM over the phone. Ever. Not for an investment, not for bail, not for a refund, not for safekeeping.
• A "crypto recovery service" that contacts you is a second scam. Always.
• Celebrity endorsements in ads are fabricated. AI-generated video and audio of well-known investors is now routine. They didn't say it.
• Your bank never asks you to convert savings to crypto. See Phantom Hacker.

Before any investment, ask three questions

1. Are you registered? Then check it yourself, on the sites above.
2. How do I get my money out, and what does that cost? A real answer is specific and boring. A vague answer is a warning.
3. May I have that in writing, and take a week to think?

Any pressure against question three ends the conversation. Legitimate opportunities survive a week. That's the whole idea behind waiting a day — just scaled to the size of the money.

If you've already invested: Do this now. Report to ic3.gov — the FBI actively works these cases, and crypto has occasionally been traced and seized. Do not pay any fee to release your funds. That is the scam completing itself.

Three questions, and you're protected

Are you registered? How do I get my money out? May I take a week to think?

That's it. Those three questions cost nothing, are completely normal to ask, and close the door on the costliest scam category in America.

Real opportunities survive a week and a background check. You're allowed to insist on both.