Sometimes, it’s hard to tell an internet scam from something that is merely a prank. This is one of those times.

But whatever this is, it has the Federal Reserve baffled and worried.

I’ll start from the beginning of this “scrank” — a combination of the words scam and prank.

Some time ago, someone using the name “Harvey Dent” — which seems to also be the name of a Batman villain — posted a YouTube video telling people that they can use their Social Security numbers to pay any of their bills, such as phone, cable, mortgage and electric, through the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund.

“Dent” claimed that every American had a secret bank account at the Fed that could be tapped for these purposes.

Apparently, people did try to pay the “Dent” way and, of course, were unsuccessful because there are no such secret bank accounts. And when the payments started piling up at the Federal Reserve’s regional banks — whose routing numbers were given out by Dent — the Fed got concerned.

This is all very complicated, but “Dent” apparently said it has something to do with “sovereign citizenship” and how countries were really like companies. His organization seems to be named “Government Services Corporation Watch” and it professed that “governments are actually corporations — the president/prime minister, its CEO.”

So Donald Trump is really the chief executive officer of the US and not just the commander-in-chief.

Are you following? Good, because I’m not sure I am.

“Dent’s” YouTube post has been taken down, but you can still Google his name and thoughts.

It’s unclear to me — and apparently everyone else — how people could have been cheated by this, although people were giving up their Social Security numbers.

Companies, however, could be cheated — at least for a while.

There was this case in Tennessee, for instance, where two heavily indebted people of the sovereign citizens movement did temporarily scam an online bank out of a few million bucks before they were caught and convicted of wire and bank fraud.

But to everyone else, the “Dent” plan seems like nothing more than a pretty successful prank.

Of course, the “Dent” system of payments is all nonsense, as the Atlanta Federal Reserve says in an “important announcement” for anyone who calls its main phone line. “These transactions are fraudulent … a scam,” says the message.

“The appropriate law enforcement agencies have been notified and the situation is being closely monitored and investigated,” the Atlanta Fed message says.

Whatever is going on seems to be very slow-moving. It looks like it goes back at least to July 28, 2017, when “Dent’s” YouTube page disappeared. It’s unclear if “Dent” or someone else put up this page. But whoever did is writing gibberish.

I’m not going to tell you any more — as intrigued as you might be — because I don’t want anyone sending the payments for their orthodontist to the Fed, only to find out later that their teeth have been fraudulently straightened.