[HN Gopher] Show HN: I built a tool to detect scams
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       Show HN: I built a tool to detect scams
        
       Author : vinnythejinny
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2025-03-08 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (scamchecknow.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (scamchecknow.com)
        
       | debarshri wrote:
       | Is there an API that i can use?
        
         | kimura wrote:
         | An API would be awesome.
        
       | nickdothutton wrote:
       | Haven't tested but I'd just like to commend anyone doing
       | something to spoil the success rate of scammers who prey upon the
       | old, the gullible, and the just plain too busy to check properly.
        
         | harvey9 wrote:
         | People who think they're too busy need to make time in
         | proportion to the money involved. I read a news story about
         | someone scammed out of the price of a home because they were on
         | holiday and too busy to be suspicious that the realtor suddenly
         | emailed to ask them to send the money to a different account.
        
         | 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
         | They also prey on the lonely. The big new thing in scamming is
         | "pig butchering". Make friends with someone online, gradually
         | persuade them you're a genius crypto trader, get them
         | depositing funds to a "crypto trading platform", number goes
         | up, get them depositing more funds... then pull the rug.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QhMqoTNSl8
         | 
         | I remember when I was young in the early 2000s, the internet
         | was a place you could make friends. These pig butchering
         | scammers are working to wreck what little social fabric the
         | internet has left.
        
       | domfie wrote:
       | Won't the scammers not just use this to improve their campaigns?
        
         | r4ndomname wrote:
         | This is exactly what I thought.
         | 
         | Another domain, but the same result [1]. Better detectors just
         | yield better fake.
         | 
         | 1:
         | https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper/2019/hash/3e9f0fc9b2f89...
        
         | 986aignan wrote:
         | In some cases there's an inherent tradeoff.
         | 
         | A scam might, for instance, say "If you don't go to
         | phishingpage.xyz RIGHT NOW your account will be DELETED!" to
         | capitalize on urgency. That appeal to urgency can be detected.
         | The scammers could of course just choose not to appeal to
         | urgency, but then that would reduce the number of people who'd
         | fall for their scam.
        
       | mentalgear wrote:
       | After a quick look: input seems to be a screenshot - but this
       | would omit quite a lot of useful information.
       | 
       | E.g.
       | 
       | - email app might not show the actual sender email adress but
       | just their "name"
       | 
       | - links can look legit on a screenshot (e.g. yourBank.com) but
       | the actual linked address is scamYou.com.
       | 
       | Given these obvious limitations, I'm really doubtful how
       | trustworthy this solution can be.
       | 
       | Plus:
       | 
       | - the contact page does not show any names, just claims a " team
       | of cybersecurity experts "
       | 
       | - about page in the footer 404s out.
       | 
       | This could as well just be a scam itself to read others' emails.
        
       | halamadrid wrote:
       | Built on Lovable? Looks neat. If yes, how was your experience?
       | Did you have to customize much by hand or did it take care of
       | most of the work?
        
       | geonic wrote:
       | Nice, tried with a scam text I received today. 95% sure it was
       | scam.
        
       | ge96 wrote:
       | Kindly... (SCAM!)
       | 
       | Dear sir... (SCAM!)
       | 
       | Voicemail half cut off starts talking about "I see your papers on
       | my desk here" (SCAM!)
       | 
       | It is amazing though Twilio, you can write a voice mail via XML
       | and start dialing away.
        
       | stwrzn wrote:
       | Nice tool, however if I am correct you are calling the Google
       | generative language API directly, your API key is exposed to the
       | client (the browser).
       | 
       | If you have no spending limits, this is a very (very very very)
       | bad idea.
        
         | hiesnbugtastic wrote:
         | damn, I can't stress this enough. You publish a key be prepared
         | for millions on dollars of issues.
        
           | stwrzn wrote:
           | Yes, exactly. Google seems to be calm in this regard luckily
           | as far as i know though.
           | 
           | OP please revoke the key ASAP
        
       | reconnecting wrote:
       | scamchecknow[.]com Creation Date: 2025-03-07T11:59:10Z
       | 
       | Looks like red flag.
        
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       (page generated 2025-03-08 23:01 UTC)