Pearl Shield Foundation

Free anti-fraud education, built by a survivor.

Scams are written by professionals to make smart, careful people act fast. We teach the script, and one word that stops it.

Explore the courses

Community Education
Frontline Education
Victim Support
Policy Research

Pearl's Story

From victim, to survivor, to guardian.

Pearl Kearley spent more than thirty years in Silicon Valley as a first-generation immigrant and accounting manager. After her husband passed away, she met someone on Match.com. It became a six-year romance scam that took her savings, her investments, and her home.

When she finally saw the scam for what it was, she did what victims are told to do and reported it. With no lawyer or investigator, she carried 840 pages of evidence to local police, the FBI, Homeland Security, the FTC, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, and U.S. Senate offices.

$3.2M+lost to a romance scam

6 yearsfrom first message to the truth

20+agencies she reported to

Between the forms and the letters, she stopped only asking for help and started building it. She founded Pearl Shield Foundation in Pleasanton, California, on October 10, 2026, and established it in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on November 2, 2026.

“Please don't end up like me. I will rise again where I fell.”

Portrait of Pearl Kearley, from her forthcoming memoir Becoming Pearl.

Documentary

Every Door

Pearl's own footage shows, day by day, how many doors one victim has to knock on alone, and why one place to report scams would change everything.

She carried her own case from office to office. She shouldn't have had to.

Our mission

Protect Siblings' Fortunes.

We provide free anti-fraud education so no one has to learn the way our founder did. Our work rests on four pillars.

Community Education

Free classes taught by trained Pearl Shield Community Educators (our own training designation), using a fixed curriculum measured before and after.

Frontline Education

Survivor-informed training for bank staff, police, prosecutors, and elder-care professionals. We are seeking expert partners to review and co-teach it.

Victim Support

Supervised peer listening and guided referral. We give no legal, financial, or clinical advice, and never handle cases or funds.

Policy Research

We share combined before-and-after course results, by ZIP code where available, to inform policy. These are pilot findings, not local fraud rates.

Spring
2027Pilot

Our model: one measured pilot first

One community site and one fixed curriculum, measured before and after, with combined results shared back. A small, supervised team of trained educators will teach it.

Our team

Pearl Kearley

Founder & President

Wei Li, Ph.D.

Co-Founder

Yan Wang

Director of Finance

Yue Huang, CFA

Chief Investment Officer

One word to remember

When something feels wrong, remember PEARL.

Every course is built around five steps that work against any script: a phone call, a text, a pop-up, or a knock at the door.

PPauseStop. Don't rush. Take a breath.

EEndHang up. Close the pop-up. Leave the chat.

AAskCheck the number yourself. Ask someone you trust.

RReportYour bank, your local police, and ic3.gov.

LLockFreeze credit, new passwords, two-step login.

Courses

Ten free fraud-prevention courses

PS-101 through PS-110, each with a two-minute video brief. Course materials are available for review on request.

Course Overview

See how the ten courses fit together. Each is a free class built around PEARL, and you can sign up below the course list.

By scam type PS-101 to PS-106

PS-101

Government Impersonation

Real agencies don't call demanding gift cards, gold, or crypto. Hanging up isn't defying the government. Verifying is how you protect yourself.

PS-102

Personal Data Breach

A breach letter isn't a loss yet. Play defense: freeze your credit, lock your accounts, and agree on a family code word against AI voice clones.

PS-103

Business Email Compromise

“Today only,” “confidential,” “don't call.” Check the domain letter by letter and confirm every payment change through a second channel.

PS-104

Confidence & Romance Scams

Feelings deserve respect. Payments can be refused. Learn the “let me help you invest” script and the two red lines that never move.

PS-105

Tech & Customer Support Scams

Red screens, “fraud teams,” safe accounts, and couriers at the door: the three-layer “Phantom Hacker” playbook and its five red lights.

PS-106

Investment Fraud

Fake platforms, profit-posting group chats, and “pay a fee to withdraw.” Guaranteed returns are two red flags in one sentence.

By who you are PS-107 to PS-110

PS-107

Scams Targeting Adults 60+

The four P's (Pretend, Problem, Pressure, Pay) and the “grandparent in trouble” call. If it happened to you, it is not your fault.

PS-108

NextGen Financial Safety

For youth: the five-step script that targets kids online, and why the thing a scammer fears most is you telling someone.

Watch the brief

PS-109

Young Adults Financial Safety

First accounts, first jobs, first leases: exactly where scripts wait. Young adults lose smaller amounts, but more often.

Watch the brief

PS-110

Students Abroad Financial Safety

For international students: fake police and embassy calls, isolation demands, and how to verify before you ever move money.

Research & publications

What one case can teach the system.

Pearl's case became a detailed record of where fraud protection broke down. We share what it teaches with care for privacy and for open investigations, alongside state-by-state data briefs.

Policy brief · Free

Lessons From One Case

Four gaps victims face after a scam, from one documented case: housing, legal help, too many regulators, and IC3 follow-up. Each comes with a recommendation in support of the bipartisan ReportScams.gov Act (S. 4782). Names no suspects, accounts or banks.

Download PDF

Full report · By request

The Pearl Ledger

A forensic analysis of the 824-page evidence package: 188 transactions, the network behind them, and an evidence-gathering plan. Shared only with law enforcement, regulators, prosecutors and vetted researchers.

Request access

White papers · After the pilot

Pilot findings

After the spring 2027 pilot, we will publish combined results by age group and region, with sample sizes and methods. We never publish names or individual answers.

Planned for 2027

Help & contact

You are not alone.

If you or someone you love has been scammed

It is not your fault. Speed matters most.

Stop paying, including any “fee” to get money back.
Call your bank on the number on your card and ask them to stop or recall the payment.
Report to the FBI at ic3.gov and to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Age 60+? Call the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).
Feeling overwhelmed? Call or text 988, any hour.

Contact us

Partner with us, host a class, request course materials, or share your story.

info@pearlshieldfoundation.org

Pleasanton, California

State data briefs

Internet-crime losses reported to the FBI in 2025, per resident. Click any state or territory to see its key numbers and download its one-page snapshot.

Under $35
$35–44
$45–54
$55–69
$70+
No per-resident figure

Source: FBI IC3, 2025 IC3 Annual Report, pp. 28–31 and 49–50; 2024 report, p. 21. Per-resident figures from IC3's losses per 100,000 residents. Complaints are reports people chose to file, not all incidents.