Every official page says report it. So what actually happens after you do?
Of 2,893 US federal scam complaints filed in 2026, 9.3% closed with money and 85.1% closed with an explanation. Companies answered on time 97.9% of the time, so the process is not failing on compliance. Relief runs from 34.9% down to zero depending on the institution, and the payment rail decides much of the rest.
Read the index →If you were tricked into sending the money yourself, does the law make your bank give it back?
Of 27 countries, only one — the United Kingdom — legally mandates reimbursement for authorised (deception) fraud. Everywhere else, the law refunds the hack, not the con.
Read the index →When a scammer puts a real company's name on a text, does anyone stop it?
7 countries make businesses register the name they text under, and 5 block impersonators outright. Britain invented the mechanism in 2019 — and left it voluntary.
Read the index →Does that company actually text or email you — and what does it say it will never do?
All 28 entries — the most-impersonated organisations, plus the one public figure who publishes a never-statement of his own — say in their own words that they will never do what the scam does. The scam is always contradicted by the impersonated party's own policy.
Read the index →What does each dating app actually verify — and what does it only appear to verify?
Not one of the 12 publishes a background-check programme. Five — all Match Group — explicitly confirm they dropped them when the Garbo partnership ended in 2023, and nothing replaced it. The other seven have never published one. Verification confirms a live face, never honest intent.
Read the index →Which frauds have an official, free route to be repaid — and is it open right now?
Only one of the 11 programmes tracked is still open to new claims. And a court-ordered restitution figure is not the same thing as money a victim can actually be paid — Mirror Trading International carries a $1.7B order with no active payout at all.
Read the index →How we work
Every index here is built the same way, and the method is the point. Each asks one factual question — not a composite score, not a ranking of vibes — and answers it identically for every country, company or programme in the set. Each row links the primary source behind it: the regulator, the statute, the company's own security page, the court administrator. Nothing is estimated, and no figure appears unless a named authority published it.
We use tiers rather than invented numbers, because on questions like these the reality is close to categorical and a tier is more honest than false precision. And we state the limits out loud. Where we searched and found no scheme, we say we found none — which is a statement about our search, not proof about the world. Where a source could not be read first-hand, we say so rather than quoting it as though it had been.
None of this is funded. There is no bank, telecoms company, platform or sponsor behind any index on this page — which is worth knowing, because several of these findings are inconvenient for banks, dating apps and telecoms regulators. That is largely why nobody else had counted them.
For journalists
All 6 indexes are free to cite and republish with credit (CC BY 4.0), graphics included. Each carries its own methodology, its own suggested citation, and an explicit statement of what it does not claim.
Want the underlying data, a figure updated, a correction, or a quote from our founder? Email press@tuteladigitalis.com. We answer, and we publish corrections.
Common questions
Can I cite or republish this research?
Yes. Every index on this page is free to cite and republish with credit, under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence. Each index carries its own suggested citation and a methodology section explaining exactly how it was built and what it does not claim. Every index is archived on Zenodo with its own permanent DOI, each including the raw CSV and JSON plus the full methodology, so each stays citable and resolvable independently of this site: Dating App Safety Index https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21440084, Impersonation Index https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21453980, Scam-Refund Index https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21454097, Scam-Text Protection Index https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21454132, Scam-Victim Compensation Tracker https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21454167, Complaint Outcome Index https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22068759. If you need the underlying data, an updated figure, or a quote, email press@tuteladigitalis.com.
How is this research funded?
It isn't funded by anyone. Tutela Digitalis is an independent fraud-education resource with no bank, telecoms, platform or industry funding, and no sponsor for any index on this page. That matters, because several of these findings are inconvenient for banks, dating apps and telecoms regulators — which is precisely why nobody else had counted them.
How do you decide what to research?
One test: is there a countable, checkable claim that nobody has bothered to count? Every index here answers a single factual question — does the law force a refund, does anyone stop an impersonated text, does this app run background checks — with one row per country, company or programme, each sourced to the authority behind it. We publish tiers and sourced positions rather than invented composite scores, because a tier is more honest than false precision.
What if one of your entries is wrong?
Tell us and we will correct it and say that we did. Every row links its primary source so any claim can be checked at source, and each index states its own limits explicitly — including where we found no evidence of a scheme rather than proof that none exists. Corrections go to press@tuteladigitalis.com.
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