Skeemilist

Skeemilist is a term used in some online communities to describe a practitioner who studies, documents, and counters schemes and social engineering, with a focus on scams, fraud patterns, and manipulation tactics. The word appears to be a blend of skeem, an Afrikaans word meaning scheme or plot, and the English suffix -list, used to denote a specialist or advocate. It is not widely recognized in formal dictionaries or academic lexicons.

Activities commonly associated with skeemilists include collecting and analyzing scam narratives, mapping attacker techniques such as urgency, fear appeals, and authority cues, and tracing infrastructure behind fraud, such as phishing domains and payment flows. They may produce educational materials to raise awareness, aid prevention, or support consumer protection efforts. In practice, skeemilists often collaborate with cybersecurity professionals, fraud-reporting platforms, or digital literacy initiatives, sharing findings through blogs, reports, or open datasets.

Origins and reception: the term has appeared in niche online discussions and informal networks during the 2020s, but it has not achieved standardization or broad adoption within mainstream cybersecurity literature. Proponents argue that framing scam research as a distinct field can improve public awareness and prevention strategies, while critics view the term as informal or nonstandard.

See also: Fraud prevention, Social engineering, Phishing, Cybersecurity education, OSINT.