Our own channels
We may show the redacted artifact in our videos, on this site, and on the social accounts we publish to. This is the narrower of the two.
Send us a scam
If something landed on your phone and you think other people should see it, we would like to look at it. Read this page first. It takes a minute and it protects you.
Before you send anything
Never send us these
Not in a first email, and not later. We will never ask you to email any of these. If something cannot be verified without them, we will find another way or decline the submission — the answer is never for you to send them.
- Social Security numbers
- Full bank account or card numbers
- Passwords, PINs, one-time codes or recovery codes
- Photographs of driving licenses, passports or other identity documents
- Full bank or card statements
- Medical records, insurance or pharmacy paperwork, or anything else about your health — Medicare and health-plan scams are common, and the scam message is the part we need, never the health information around it
- Anything belonging to someone else who has not agreed to it
If you have already sent us something in this list, email submit@decoysignal.com and say so. We delete it from our working systems and confirm to you in writing. We cannot reach inside our mail provider's backups, which clear on their own schedule, and we will not claim otherwise — but nothing in this list is ever used, published or licensed.
If you are under 18, please do not send us a submission. If we learn that something came from a child under 13 we delete it rather than reply further, and it is never published or licensed.
How it works
We do not want the evidence in your first message. Email is not a safe place to put it, and we would rather tell you what we actually need than have you send more than you should.
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You tell us what happened
Email submit@decoysignal.com and describe it in your own words. What arrived, roughly when, how it reached you, and what it asked you to do. Do not attach anything yet.
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We reply and tell you what we need
Usually that is one screenshot with parts of it already covered up, and sometimes nothing at all. We will also set out, in that reply, exactly what you would be agreeing to, so you can decide with it in front of you.
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You decide, in writing
Two separate questions, and you can say yes to one and no to the other. We keep that reply as the record of what you agreed to and when.
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We redact, and usually we do not use it
Sending something does not mean we will use it. We look for patterns that will affect a lot of people, not one-off cases, and that is not a judgment on what happened to you.
What you would be agreeing to
Sending us a message is not permission to publish it. Permission is a separate step, and it is two questions rather than one, because these are different acts with very different reach.
In both cases you keep ownership of the material and you will not be paid. We publish submissions anonymously unless you explicitly ask to be credited.
What we do before anything is shown
- We redact the identifying details we can find — names, account numbers, card digits, addresses and phone numbers — before a frame is rendered. We use solid blocks, never blurs, because blurs have been reversed.
- We check the redaction against the rendered frame, not against the source file, because that is where mistakes actually survive.
- We never publish a working link or a reachable number belonging to the scam.
- We will not claim to catch everything. If you can see something in your own material that must not appear, tell us in your reply and we will cover it. You know your own details better than we do.
Changing your mind
Email submit@decoysignal.com at any time and we will stop using it.
- What we will do, within seven days: stop using the material, remove it from this site, and remove or replace it in videos on channels we control.
- What we cannot do: recall a copy already delivered to a licensee, or one already downloaded, re-uploaded or screen-recorded by someone else. Once something has been published, parts of it are outside anyone's control, and we will not pretend otherwise.
- What we will always do: tell you honestly which of those two applies to your material, rather than giving you a reassurance that is not true.
We are working on a proper submission form that records consent with a date and a version, which is better than an email exchange for everyone. Until it exists, this is the process, and we would rather say that than imply a system we do not have. Questions about any of this go to service@decoysignal.com.