Scam Case FilesTerms of Use
For the Scam Case Files mobile app on iOS and Android
(com.terwi.scamcase).
Effective 14 August 2026 · Last updated 14 August 2026
The one clause that matters. Scam Case Files is a work of fiction made for entertainment. It cannot detect a real scam, recover money, identify or track anyone, verify a real identity, or protect you from fraud, and nothing in it is legal, financial or law-enforcement advice. If real money is at risk, stop reading and call your bank on a number you found yourself.
1. This agreement
These terms are an agreement between you and Motaz Tarawneh ("I", "me"), the developer of the Scam Case Files mobile application and this website (together, "the app"). By downloading or using the app you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use it.
2. Your licence
You get a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use one copy of the app on devices you own or control, for your own personal entertainment. This licence is limited by the rules of the app store you downloaded it from, which also apply.
3. Everything in the app is fiction
Every person, company, platform, domain, address, phone number, document, account number, transaction and photograph in the app is invented for the game. Any resemblance to a real person, business or organisation is unintended and coincidental. Nothing in a case is a statement of fact about anyone.
The fraud tactics the cases dramatise are real and are drawn from publicly documented patterns. Their fictional perpetrators are not.
4. What the app is — and is not
The app is an interactive detective game with an educational side effect: playing well means learning to recognise the patterns real scams use. It presents a simulated phone, bundled inside the app, and asks you to reason about it.
It is not:
- a scanner, detector or checker of any kind — it has no access to your real messages, email, photos, contacts, accounts or device, and requests no permission that would give it any;
- a way to verify whether a message, person, offer, website or payment request you encountered in real life is genuine;
- a means of recovering money, tracing funds, identifying a scammer, or reporting anything to any authority;
- legal, financial, investment, security or law-enforcement advice, and not a substitute for professional advice or for contacting your bank or the police;
- affiliated with, endorsed by, or a source of official information from any bank, payment provider, platform, retailer or public authority.
Doing well in the game is not evidence that you will spot a real scam, and doing badly is not evidence that you will fall for one. Real fraud is designed by people who adapt; a fixed case file is not.
5. Age
The app deals with fraud, financial loss and emotional manipulation, and is intended for players aged 16 and over. By using it you confirm you meet that age, or that a parent or guardian has agreed to it on your behalf.
6. Purchases
The Starter Case Pack is a one-time, non-consumable in-app purchase — not a subscription and not a recurring charge. It permanently unlocks The Dream Apartment and The Urgent Boss for the store account that bought it, and can be restored on another device through Settings → Restore purchases. The first case remains free.
The transaction itself is between you and Apple or Google. Prices are shown by your store in your own currency and may change. Refunds are handled by the store under its own policies, not by me, although I will help if something in the app is at fault.
The purchase unlocks the case content that exists at the time you buy it. Future cases may be sold separately.
7. Acceptable use
You agree not to reverse-engineer, decompile or disassemble the app except where the law expressly permits it; not to extract, redistribute, resell, republish or sublicense its case content, text, artwork or audio; not to remove or alter any notices in it; and not to use it or anything from it to deceive, defraud, harass or impersonate anyone.
To be explicit about the last one: the cases contain worked examples of manipulation, written to be recognised. Using them as material for a real scam ends this licence immediately and may be a criminal offence where you live.
8. Intellectual property
The app — its code, its case content, its characters, its design, its name and its mark — remains my property and is protected by copyright and other laws. These terms grant you a licence to play, not ownership of any part of it. You may share a result card or a screenshot of your own play; you may not republish the case content itself.
9. Your progress and your data
Your progress and settings are stored on your device and I never receive them — see the Privacy Policy. Because there is no cloud copy, progress is not backed up by me and cannot be recovered: deleting the app, losing the device, or a device failure will lose it. Purchases follow your store account and can be restored; progress cannot.
10. Availability and changes
The app is provided as it is today. I may change, add or remove features and cases, adjust the scoring, or stop supporting the app entirely, without notice. Because it runs on your device with no server, an installed version keeps working regardless — but updates, new cases and support are not promised. Anything described as planned may never ship.
11. No warranty
The app is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. I do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that its content is accurate or complete, or that playing it will improve your ability to recognise fraud.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here removes consumer rights you have by law that cannot be waived.
12. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, I am not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, time, money or profits, arising out of your use of the app — including, for the avoidance of any doubt, any loss arising from a real scam, fraud, or financial decision, whether or not you relied on something you learned or believed you learned from the game.
Where liability cannot be excluded, my total liability to you for any claim relating to the app is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for it in the twelve months before the claim, or US$10.
Nothing in these terms excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be excluded by law.
13. Termination
This licence ends automatically if you break these terms, and you can end it at any time by deleting the app. Sections 3, 4, 8, 11, 12 and 16 survive.
14. Apple App Store
If you obtained the app from the Apple App Store, the following also applies:
- These terms are between you and me only, not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content.
- Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the app. Support requests go to me, at the address below.
- If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever.
- I, not Apple, am responsible for addressing any claim relating to the app, including product liability claims, any claim that it fails to conform to a legal requirement, and claims under consumer protection or similar legislation.
- I, not Apple, am responsible for investigating and resolving any third-party claim that the app infringes that party's intellectual property rights.
- You confirm you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.
15. Google Play
If you obtained the app from Google Play, your use is also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service. These terms are between you and me; Google is not a party to them and is not responsible for the app.
16. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the country in which the developer is resident, without regard to its conflict of law rules, and the courts of that country have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.
If you are a consumer, none of this deprives you of the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you live, or of your right to bring proceedings there.
17. Changes to these terms
I may update these terms. The date at the top of this page shows the current version, and continuing to use the app after a change means you accept it. Material changes will be described here rather than quietly made.