Is It A Scam? Pig Butchering/Crypto Investment Scam Diagnostic

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The SCARS Institute provides this diagnostic to help you find out whether an online friendship, romance, professional connection, or investment opportunity follows the recognized structure of a relationship investment scam. You can save your result to share with a trusted person, your bank, or law enforcement.

I give my consent for my fully de-identified assessment data to be used for research purposes only. I understand that all personal identifiers have been removed from my responses, this information will not be shared with any third parties, and my participation is completely voluntary.

Start or Continue

Twenty-five Yes-or-No questions in five sections. Most people finish in ten minutes. If you need to stop, your answers are saved at the end of each section under a resume code.

Start the diagnostic

You will receive a resume code so you can stop and return on any device.

Enter a resume code

Pick up where you stopped, or bring back a finished result from the past 90 days.

Before You Begin

This diagnostic checks whether an online friendship, romantic relationship, professional connection, or investment opportunity follows the recognized structure of a relationship investment scam. These scams begin with trust, not a demand for money. The criminal builds a personal relationship, introduces an apparently profitable investment, directs you to a platform the criminals control, displays fabricated earnings, and encourages larger and larger deposits. The victim eventually discovers that the displayed profits cannot be withdrawn.

About the name. "Pig butchering" is the criminals' own term for the long financial grooming of their targets. It says nothing about the intelligence, character, or responsibility of the person being deceived. Government agencies increasingly call this crime a "relationship investment scam," which describes it without the offenders' degrading language.

Answer alone. Do not ask the person, the investment group, the mentor, or any platform representative to help you answer. They have every reason to steer your answers.

Answer Yes when the behavior has happened, even if the person, platform, adviser, or customer service gave an explanation.
Answer No only when the behavior has not happened, or when you verified the claim yourself through a source the suspected person does not control.

The result is a Scam Risk Index from 0% to 100%. It measures how closely your situation matches the structure of this crime. It does not measure investment performance or verify any balance shown on a platform.

Please Note. This diagnostic was developed by the SCARS Institute from its work with tens of thousands of scam victims. It is a crime-detection screening tool, not a psychological assessment, not investment advice, and not legal advice. A high score identifies a probable crime in progress. A low score does not verify any person, platform, or investment.

Why this matters

Answer Yes or No to continue

v2

Pig Butchering Scam/Crypto Investment Scam

— A pig butchering scam, also called a relationship investment scam or crypto investment scam, is a prolonged confidence scheme in which criminals cultivate friendship, romance, admiration, or professional trust before introducing a fraudulent investment opportunity. The criminal presents apparent wealth and investment expertise, directs the targeted person to a controlled trading platform, displays fabricated profits, permits a small early withdrawal to strengthen confidence, and then encourages increasingly large deposits funded through savings, loans, retirement accounts, property sales, or borrowed money. When the person attempts to withdraw the displayed balance, the platform demands invented taxes, security deposits, liquidity payments, commissions, or verification fees, although the supposed profits exist only inside an interface controlled by the criminal organization. The term “pig butchering” comes from offender language and does not describe the victim, whose trust is deliberately developed through sustained psychological grooming, manipulated evidence, professional technology, false customer service, and a coordinated criminal infrastructure.

— Relationship Investment Fraud

IS IT A SCAM?