The “money-flipping scam” started appearing on Instagram and Facebook, among other places, a couple years ago, but given most social networks’ track record when it comes to deleting fraudulent accounts, I’m sure it is still around.

It works like this: someone will claim to have access to a “flaw” in some monetary transferring system, usually Western Union or one of the prepaid debit card providers. All they need is for you to give them $100, wait few minutes, then they will send you back $1,000 (sometimes $300, but usually they go for the larger amount in the pitch).

That’s the whole thing. And you can guess what actually happens: you wire money away (or load up a prepaid card and reveal the digits to the scammer), then you don’t get anything back, ever.

There are a few things to know. First, there is no “flaw” in any of these systems that allows someone to just create money out of nothing. More than any other error, these payment systems are designed specifically to not allow that. Even money that’s been turned into ones and zeroes in a computer has to come from somewhere, and their entire business depends on outgo not suddenly being ten times the input.

Second, if there was a way to make this happen, you would be attempting to commit a crime by exploiting it. There is a persistent myth that any error by a financial provider (like the old “large deposit went into the wrong account” tale) entitles you to keep the money, and it simply is not true. Even if you did find yourself in some magical realm where a software bug allowed this scheme to work, you’d better be able to pay back that $900 when the error was discovered. They’ve probably got Loss-Prevention Wizards working for them over there.