Scam Risk Check
Paste a suspicious text or email, or describe a phone call. You'll get a risk band, the warning signs we found, what not to do, and a safe way to verify it.
Please don't paste sensitive information. Do not enter passwords, Social Security numbers, bank or card numbers, one-time codes, or login credentials. You don't need them to check whether a message is a scam — and you should never share them with anyone who asks.
How this works: the check runs entirely in your browser using a fixed set of curated patterns. Nothing you paste is sent to a server, stored, or logged. We record only an anonymous count of the risk band and rule IDs — never the message itself. See the privacy policy.
What this tool can and can't do
This is a risk screener, not a detection guarantee. It matches patterns that appear in the most common scam families — payment pressure, impersonation, urgency, secrecy, and code requests. It cannot tell you with certainty whether a specific message is a scam, and it will occasionally miss new tricks or flag things a human would recognize as routine.
That's why the output always includes an independent verification path. The safest habit — for you and for your parents — is "verify through an official channel, never through the message itself."
Patterns are based on guidance from the FTC, FBI IC3, CISA, and SSA. Rule engine version 1.0.0, last reviewed 2026-08-07.
When to call in a human
If a parent has already sent money, shared a code, or given remote access to their computer, act fast but don't panic:
- Money already sent by gift card, wire, or crypto: report it immediately. Gift-card companies, banks, and the FTC have specific reporting steps, and timing matters.
- Bank or card access involved: call the number on the back of the card right away and freeze or close affected accounts.
- Verification code already shared: treat the account as compromised and change the password and sign-out other devices now.
- A "relative" asked for bail money: call the relative at their real, known number before sending anything. This is one of the most common and most convincing scams.
For a step-by-step version of the first hour, read What to do when a parent gets a suspicious text or call.
Next steps that actually help
- How to verify a bank, utility, or tech-support message independently — the one skill that protects against almost everything.
- Set up a family safe-word for voice-impersonation scams — five minutes, genuinely effective.
- Make an iPhone easier for an aging parent — including silencing unknown callers for good.
- Call-blocking devices and services: what's worth it — when a parent's landline is a spam magnet.