What this site is
Shahar Payne's personal content site about fraud investigations, risk analysis and investigative thinking: documented cases from public sources, insights, behavioural patterns and illustrative tools.
General information, not advice
Content is general and educational only. It is not legal, financial or other professional advice, or a substitute for contacting a lawyer, bank, card company or police. Contact official bodies whenever fraud is suspected.
Illustrative scenarios
Some content consists of explicitly labelled hypothetical scenarios for illustration and learning. They do not describe a particular person, company or case. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental.
Documented cases and sources
Content marked as a documented case is based on public sources linked in each case, such as indictments, judgments or reporting, according to the source. It reflects what the source published only, not necessarily a final court finding. It should not be read as my factual or legal finding about a particular person. The pattern section states what was actually checked for each source. Found an error or something needing correction? Write and I will check: [email protected].
Behavioural patterns, not diagnoses
The site describes behavioural patterns, not diagnoses of people. It makes no finding about a particular person and must not be used to "declare" someone a scammer.
Personal views
The content reflects my personal views only, not those of my employer or any other body.
Privacy: what is collected and what is not
The simulation and fraud-victim assistance tool run in the browser. The simulation also measures usage events and certain choices, including the type of ending reached. The site measures aggregate use of content and tools through GoatCounter, including events such as scroll depth and active reading time on cases and patterns. Technical information, the page address and arrival source, including campaign tags when present, may pass to the service. This is not a promise of browsing without information processing.
The About page also keeps an aggregate count of page loads in 15-minute windows, for private alerts to the owner and a usage graph. Counts are retained for seven days and contain no IP address, contact details or personal visitor identifier. Loads from a device recognised as belonging to the owner are excluded from this count.
In the contact form, the name, email address, subject and message are transmitted through Formspree and sent to Shahar's email for handling. The message is not published on the site. Do not send passwords, codes, card details or identity documents.
Subscribing to "Between the Lines" is voluntary. Email addresses and subscription data are managed through Buttondown for confirmation, newsletter delivery and unsubscribe management. The newsletter page explains information use, providers and removal.
Reading public content does not require an account. The administration area, under construction, is for Shahar only and includes Google sign-in setup. There is no public registration. Signing in to check authorisation may let Google share basic identity details, including account ID and email address. No access to Gmail content, Drive or Calendar is requested.
For questions about information you supplied or a request for access, correction or deletion under applicable law, use the contact page. The security and privacy page gives more information on technical checks and services.
External links
The site links to external bodies such as the Bank of Israel, Israel Police and National Cyber Directorate. I am not responsible for their content, availability or changes.
Intellectual property
The site's text, illustrations and design are mine. A short excerpt may be quoted with credit and a link to the original page. External sources belong to their owners.
Changes
This page will be updated from time to time. Its last update date appears at the top.
Contact
Questions about this page or site: [email protected]
This page is not legal advice.
Interest feedback
At the end of articles and topics, readers may choose an interest rating from 1 to 5. Participation is optional. The implementation stores only totals per article or topic: the count at each rating and a daily counter for load limiting. It does not store an individual voting record, name, contact details, reader ID or IP address.
Feedback adds no cookies or device storage. After submission, the button locks in the open page, but reloading or using another device may allow another rating. Rating counts are not unique-person counts or a representative sample.
The infrastructure provider processes network requests to run and secure the site; this does not claim IP addresses are never processed. Rating totals appear in the private administration area, not to readers. They are kept as aggregate totals without a fixed deletion date. General load counters, which do not identify readers, are retained for up to two days. At a load or quota limit, feedback submission may stop; article content remains available.
This translation preserves the Hebrew policy updated on 23 October 2026. It does not add new tracking or change those practices.