Scams That Target Teenagers

By Jenna Hale · Last checked August 19, 2026

Teenagers are not targeted because they are foolish. They are targeted because they have three things a scheme needs: a bank account with no history on it, a genuine wish to earn money, and a very strong reluctance to tell a parent when something has gone wrong.

That last one is the load-bearing part of nearly every scheme below. The plan does not depend on the teenager staying fooled. It depends on them staying quiet.

So before the list, the sentence that does more work than all of it: if this ever happens, you will not be in trouble with me, and telling me the same day is what makes it fixable. Say it now, before you need it.

Fake job offers and reshipping

How it works. An unsolicited message offers well-paid, flexible work with no experience needed. Sometimes the job is to receive packages at home, repackage them and forward them on, which the FTC describes in its guidance on job scams. The packages are goods bought with stolen cards. Sometimes there is an upfront fee for equipment or training. Sometimes the whole thing is a harvesting exercise for a Social Security number and bank details on a fake onboarding form.

The tell. Recruitment by text or direct message for a job never applied for. A vague job title with no specific duties. Any payment flowing toward the employer. Onboarding paperwork demanded before any interview a human being attended.

What to do. Do not send documents. Report at reportfraud.ftc.gov. If a Social Security number was handed over, go to identitytheft.gov and consider a credit freeze, which is free for a minor and covered in freeze your child’s credit.

Money muling, which is a crime the teenager can be charged with

How it works. The offer is to receive money into their own account and pass it on, keeping a cut. It arrives dressed as a job, a favour for an online friend, a “payment processing” role, or an opportunity from someone met in a game or on a dating app. The FBI defines a money mule as someone who transfers or moves illegally acquired money on behalf of someone else and lists the recruitment routes as unsolicited job offers, romance contacts and work-from-home opportunities.

Say this part plainly. The FBI’s page states that if you are a money mule, you “could be prosecuted and incarcerated as part of a criminal money laundering conspiracy,” and names possible federal charges including mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. That is what the FBI publishes, and it is worth reading in the FBI’s own words rather than ours. What we are not going to do is tell you how a court would treat a particular teenager, because that depends on facts we cannot see and on law that varies. The point to take from the FBI page is simply that being the recruited party is not a position anyone should assume is safe.

The tell. Anyone asking to use their bank account. Money arriving and needing to leave quickly. Being told to keep a percentage. Being asked to open a new account, or to add someone as a joint holder. Instructions to use a cryptocurrency kiosk.

What to do. Stop moving money immediately, do not send anything further, and keep every message.

If money has already moved through your teenager’s account, speak to a criminal defence lawyer before anyone makes a statement to anybody, including the bank and law enforcement. Reporting is still the right direction. Doing it with advice is better than doing it cold, and a first consultation is often free.

Then tell the bank and report at ic3.gov. Stopping and reporting is a very different position from being found later.

Fake check and overpayment scams

How it works. A check arrives for more than the amount owed, and the teenager is asked to send the difference back, or to buy gift cards, or to pay a fee. The FTC’s page on fake check scams lists the usual settings: mystery shopping, personal assistant work, car wrap advertising, prize claims and online marketplace overpayments.

The tell that beats all others. The FTC’s own words: “Even if you see the funds in your account, that doesn’t mean it’s a good check.” Banks make deposited funds available quickly, and a fake check can take weeks to unwind. When it does, the FTC notes, “the scammer has any money you sent, and you’re stuck paying the money back to the bank.” A teenager watching a balance go up has no reason to know this. Tell them.

What to do. Never send money back from a deposited check, ever, for any reason. If it has already happened, tell the bank the same day and report at reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Gaming and account-trading scams

How it works. An offer to buy or trade an account, skins or in-game items. A “middleman” who will hold both sides. A generous stranger who needs the account login to send a gift. A site that looks like the real store and asks for the account password. Sometimes the account is simply taken and resold, sometimes the linked card is used, sometimes the account is used to run the same scam on the victim’s own friends list.

The tell. Any request for a password or a one-time code, from anyone, for any reason. A trade that requires going first. Pressure to move to a private chat. Payment demanded in gift cards. A login page reached from a link rather than typed in.

What to do. Change the password and turn on two-factor authentication on the platform and on the email address behind it, which is the account that actually matters. Remove saved cards and check the purchase history, which is covered in in-game purchases and the charge nobody recognises. Report account theft to the platform and to reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Sextortion, which is a financial crime

This one is handled last in most articles and should be handled directly. The FBI describes financially motivated sextortion as predators posing as someone else online to coerce a young person into sending explicit images, and then immediately demanding payment under threat of sending the images to family and friends. The FBI notes that victims are frequently teenage boys, and that this has led to suicides among them. It is a money crime run on shame.

The tell, from a parent’s side. Escalating requests for money, new secrecy about the phone, visible fear rather than embarrassment, and money going out with nothing coming back.

What to do, which reverses most people’s instinct. The FBI’s guidance is to report the account through the platform’s safety feature, block the person, save the profile and the messages rather than deleting them, because they help identify the offender, and ask for help from a trusted adult or law enforcement before sending money or more images. The FBI puts it directly: “Cooperating with the predator rarely stops the blackmail and harassment, but law enforcement can.”

Stop paying. Paying does not end it.

Where to report. Your local FBI field office, 1-800-CALL-FBI, or tips.fbi.gov. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children takes reports at its CyberTipline, and its Take It Down service exists to help get images of minors removed.

And the first thing you say to your own child, before anything procedural: this is not your fault, you are not in trouble, and we are going to sort it out.

Marketplace and payment app scams

How it works. A buyer overpays and wants a refund. A seller takes payment for something that never arrives. A “verification code” is requested to prove the other person is real, which is actually a code taking over an account. A rental or ticket that is only available if payment is sent right now.

The tell. Payment demanded by app, gift card or crypto rather than a method with buyer protection. Any request to move off the platform. Any urgency. The FTC notes that scammers favour payment apps because once you do, it’s hard for you to get your money back.

What to do. Report inside the app the same day, then to the platform, then at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Turn on a PIN or multi-factor authentication on the payment app, which the FTC recommends. It is worth knowing that money in a payment app is not protected the way money in a bank is: coverage passes through to a partner bank and protects against that bank failing, not against a payment the user was tricked into sending.

“Flip your money” schemes

How it works. Send a small amount, get a much larger amount back. It appears as a direct message, often from a hacked account belonging to someone they actually know, sometimes with screenshots of other people’s supposed winnings. The crypto version adds a fake dashboard that shows the balance growing, which is why withdrawing is always possible right up until it is not.

The tell. The FTC’s list of signs is short and covers nearly all of it: promises of guaranteed profits, claims of little risk or effort, few details about the actual investment, a secret method or proven system, and high-pressure tactics. See investment scams.

What to do. Report at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and to the SEC at sec.gov/tcr where an investment is claimed. If a friend’s account sent it, tell the friend, because their account is compromised and their whole contact list is next.

Where to report, all in one place

Reporting is free, takes minutes, and does not require certainty that a crime occurred.

What this looks like

Cole is sixteen and was offered remote work through a direct message: a few hours a week processing payments, paid as a percentage of what he handled. The figures here are illustrative. The messages were friendly and unhurried, which is the part people do not expect.

The first transfer arrived, he forwarded it as instructed, and kept a cut. The second was larger. By the third his bank had frozen the account, and the first his parents knew of any of it was a letter.

Nothing about Cole’s judgment was unusual. He had been told it was a job, he had done what a job told him to do, and at no point had he been asked for money, which is the check most people think they are running.

What his parents did: stopped everything, kept every message, and, because money had already moved through the account, spoke to a criminal defence lawyer before Cole said anything to anyone. Then they called the bank and filed a report at ic3.gov describing what had happened, rather than waiting to find out whether it was serious. Being the person who reported it is a materially different position from being the person whose account was found.

The conversation they wished they had had six months earlier is one sentence long: nobody legitimate ever needs your bank account to move their money.

Saying this without frightening them

Teenagers switch off during warnings and lean in during explanations. Show them how a con is built, not what could happen to them. Walk through one of the schemes above and ask them where they would have noticed.

Then close with the two things that actually protect them: no legitimate offer requires them to move someone else’s money, and no legitimate offer pays them before they have done any work.

And repeat the promise. Not being in trouble is the thing that gets you told on day one instead of month three, and day one is when almost all of this is still fixable. If the first sign was money disappearing rather than a story, my teen spent all their money covers reading that pattern, and how to talk to your teen about money covers making it a conversation they stay in.

This page is general information, not legal advice, and criminal law varies by state and by the facts of a case. Verify anything you plan to act on against the FBI and FTC pages linked above, and if a teenager may have committed an offence, ask a criminal defence lawyer rather than a website.