Play the scammer.Learn the six tricks they use on you.

Scam Simulator is a free browser game in which you play a scammer on social media. In about ten minutes you use six real manipulation tactics to grow a fake account and push a fake investment, then see what it does to the people who believed it.

Seeing a trick from the inside makes it easier to recognise from the outside. Researchers call this prebunking or psychological inoculation. The Bad News game from the University of Cambridge showed that playing the role of a manipulator reduced how reliable people found fake content.

No. It shows tactics at the level you need to recognise them — look-alike accounts, emotional headlines, fake proof, fake crowds, urgency and attacks on warnings — without any operational detail. All names and brands in it are invented.

Before and after playing, you rate how much you'd trust four posts. Three use manipulation tactics and one is genuine. Your score compares your trust in the manipulative posts before and after. It is a self-check, not a scientific test.

In most scam games you play the potential victim. Here you play the scammer, on a social network, and watch fake accounts, fake proof and fake crowds turn a lie into lost savings. A quick before-and-after check then shows how much sharper your scam radar got.

Yes. It's free, needs no sign-up and runs in any browser. See the page for teachers for a 45-minute lesson plan.

No. There's no sign-up and no cookies, and your answers stay in your browser. We only count anonymous page visits.