Scam

She could have hung up when a scammer called claiming to be tech support for Microsoft, but no, she decided to give as good as she got.

The foundation's malfeasance was prosecuted, but most foundation wrongdoing is never even investigated.

A network of fake local news sites generated millions of pageviews as part of an ad fraud scheme.

A single screengrab — and a lack of Facebook reactions — were the likely giveaways.

I spent a week in Provence with Anna March. To me, it was worth it.

The ethical thing to do if you need to cancel a crowd-funded wedding would probably be to return people's money — not buy a blowout vacation.

The real life con man, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can," explains how he gained the confidence of his marks.

With gabapentin's recent links to overdose and reports of suicide, why is still being used so much?

"I just went into shock."

Tiversa dominated an emerging online market — before it was accused of fraud, extortion and manipulating the federal government.

A leaked email revealed that executives at a skin-care firm showed employees how to post fake reviews. But the FTC settled without a fine or admission of guilt.

The disgraced founder got rich selling a shaky business as a values-driven movement.

Yes, you read that right.

"Full House" star Lori Loughlin and several others parents in the college admissions scam are facing more charges.

The frightening trend of parents going through extreme (and often illegal) means to get their kids into the most elite schools in the country.

Kind of — but not in the way you might think

Supplement makers may be headed for jail due to deaths among men and women using their pills. But will anything change?

Elizabeth Pierce impressed investors with hefty contracts for fiber — until they learned she was the only one who'd signed them.

"There have to be consequences for violation of my order sixteen thousand times," U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim said at a hearing on Monday.

When traveling to the backpacking capital of the world, tourists should remain vigilant because they will be exposed to a number of scams.

In a world where art can sell for millions, why not get in on the action?

How a Twitch-streamed no-limit hold'em player found himself at the heart of one of the most fascinating gambling controversies in years

A YouTuber goes back to grill multi-level marketing company World Financial Group about their sketchy business practices.

Taking Vitamin C won't cure your cold, why did we think it would to begin with?

The dog-friendly listing — the Felthams were traveling with their two Yorkshire terriers — seems to have been based on a real apartment. Sort of.

Oliver breaks down why compounding pharmacies, pharmacies that make bespoke medication, have become a pharmaceutical "Wild West."

On paper, "Legends" looked like a box-office hit. Adam Joiner billed his movie as an anachronistic mash-up of legendary 19th-century American figures, a steampunk Avengers. The only problem? Beyond its screenplay, "Legends" didn't exist – and it never would.

On paper, "Legends" looked like a box-office hit. Adam Joiner billed his movie as an anachronistic mash-up of legendary 19th-century American figures, a steampunk "Avengers" — tailor-made to satiate the ever-expanding appetite for big-ticket, fantasy-action pictures.

With 11 members now accused of fraud, the family claims ignorance of any wrongdoing.

New research suggests that one of the state's greatest historians had a hand in perpetrating an infamous hoax

A YouTuber goes undercover to scrutinize the multi-level marketing company World Financial Group — things start to go awry quick.

A phony tech support scammer attempts to lure in a mark but ends up becoming the scamee.

The same people who years ago entrusted Peggy Ann Fulford with millions — from Ricky Williams to Dennis Rodman to Travis Best — wince today at the mention of her name.

The scammer's scheme was to con his victim into buying $2,000 worth of Best Buy gift cards. Unfortunately for the scammer, he didn't account for the YouTuber Jim Browning thwarting his plans entirely.

YouTuber Kitboga impersonates a grandma to fool scammers attempting to rip off an elderly woman.

I decided to find out whether Instagram poetry took real talent, or if the whole thing is a sham, by becoming the worst poet the internet has ever seen.

Inside the machine that turns charitable and political contributions into paydays.

Inside Richard Zeitlin's machine that turns charitable and political contributions into paydays.

YouTuber Josh Pieters wanted to see whether he could get away with creating a fake restaurant called "The Italian Stallion" on Deliveroo, a food-delivery app in the UK. Turns out it's not as difficult as you'd think.

To protect their networks and bottom lines, health insurers don't aggressively pursue widespread fraud, making it easy for scammers. Then they pass the costs off to you.

"I didn't plan to become an art forger. It kind of happened by default."

Amid the college admissions scandal, another type of cheating was overlooked: Students already in college who pay others to write their papers.

The original Ponzi scheme, Walmart's shady $2.6 billion tax dodge through a "fictitious" Chinese entity and more of the weeks' best scam and hoax stories.

You can't always trust what you see online. Earlier this year, tiny house guru John Kernohan learned this the hard way when he decided to buy a dome-shaped tiny home off Facebook's online marketplace.

The mark believed he was speaking to the CEO of his businesses' parent company based in Germany.

A dying Irishman went for one last big score in Nigeria. The project failed, but a London tribunal says his company's owed $9 billion and counting.

Harald Strümpke didn't just create a lost archipelago, he created a sensation.

Nobody knows who did it first. Swindlers have been pulling off the scam for centuries. But it was Charles Ponzi who, in Boston in 1920, earned permanent naming rights to the scheme by dazzling the investing public and dumbfounding authorities like no other.

More than 100 industry hopefuls have been swindled by a voice on the other end of the line — lured to Indonesia by a bizarre mix of name-dropping and phone sex. Here's how the con works and why the man they call the Queen is still at large.

What inspires a corporation to steal millions of dollars?

The Netflix film that never existed, how Uber and Lyft are "robbing" their drivers and more best scam and hoax stories of the week.

A retired police officer in Dearborn, Michigan, Margittay has found a second act as a crusader, and his cause is to root out, expose, and rid the world of shifty carnival games. He can't stand when fraud stands in the way of fun.

Sellers are finding old AmazonBasics listings and using them to sell weighted blankets, knives and clocks.

Frank Abagnale of "Catch Me If You Can" fame explains why we're in the golden age of scamming.

Captain Stephens has an illustrious crime history, according to the scam caller, that includes drug trafficking and money laundering of more than $10 million dollars.

Looking at a charging cable with thousands of positive reviews? Some of them could be for other products.

Inside the rise and fall of a popular diet marketed as "Donald Trump's Plan to Make America Thin Again."

Scammers have cooked up a truly strange scheme to leech traffic from journalists.

A woman who pretended to have cancer to have a £15,000 wedding, the student who manipulated her lonely high school teachers to cheat and more of this week's best scam and hoax stories.

Scores of people born through artificial insemination have learned from DNA tests that their biological fathers were the doctors who performed the procedure.