Built in Australia · No app to install · Answers in ten seconds

When you're not sure, just forward it.

Someone already texts you “is this real?” — or you've wished you had someone to ask. Is it a scam? answers in ten seconds, on the phone you already use. Set it up for someone you look out for, or for yourself.

Set this up for someone Try a free check — no signup

First month free · two minutes to set up · nothing for them to install

Recognises Australia Post, the major banks, myGov, Medicare and Centrelink out of the box. Confirmed scams are reported to Scamwatch.

Running a business? We read the PDF invoice itself and remember which details each supplier uses — how it protects a business →

saved in contacts ↓
Is it a scam?
Your safety line
Who it's for

Whoever you worry about. Including yourself.

Most people find us looking after a parent — that's the most common story, not the only one. The service protects a person, not a relationship.

A parent or grandparent

You already get the “is this real?” texts. They forward to us instead — and you're told only when something's caught. The most personal kinds, like romance scams, stay between us and them unless they choose to share.

A brother, sister or friend

Looking out for someone your own age — no lecture, no fuss. They keep their independence.

A partner, or someone you care for

After an illness or injury, when messages get harder to judge. Carers can be kept in the loop, not just relatives.

Yourself

Scams are convincing now — checking one isn't a weakness, it's sense. Nobody else needs to be involved unless you want them to be.

One subscription covers your whole family. Plans differ only in how many people you protect — never in who they are to you.

And if it's the business you worry about — the invoices, the “ATO” email in BAS week — that's its own plan, built around supplier memory →

Running a club, a retirement village or a community group? One free talk for the room, or one form and everyone is covered →

How it works

One saved contact. However it arrives.

A text, a WhatsApp, an email, a photo of a letter — or just typing what happened, which is the only way that covers phone calls too. Same number, same calm answer. How a verdict is made →

Add “Is it a scam?” to contacts Open in WhatsApp

One tap saves the number, the email and the logo. WhatsApp is the best way to send photos. It answers people on a plan — two minutes to set up.

Text message
Forward it, or just tell us what happened
WhatsApp
Best on WhatsApp: forward with one tap, and photos send instantly — the best channel for a photographed invoice or quote
Email
check@getforwardit.com — forward the whole thing. We read invoices, quotes and contracts as PDFs, attachments and all
A photo
A letter, a popup, a quote on the kitchen table — by WhatsApp or email

Some scams leave nothing to forward — a phone call, a letter, a knock at the door. Telling us what happened in your own words covers all of it, and it's the most basic thing a phone does. Their first message from us is a practice run that's impossible to fail.

Is it a scam?
Your safety line

The rarest answer

Is it a scam?
Looks fine
This matches CommBank's real details. Still open their app yourself rather than tapping the link.
Text message · just now

The most common answer

Is it a scam?
Be careful
We can't prove this is real or a scam. Don't act through it — if it's real, use the app or number you already have. Reply ASK to check with family.
Text message · just now

When we're certain

Is it a scam?
Scam
Don't pay this. Real couriers never charge a fee through a link in a text. Reply REPORT to log it.
Text message · just now

Most answers are “be careful” rather than a green tick, and that is on purpose. A message can prove a scam — a fake web address gives it away — but almost nothing in a message can prove it is real. We would rather say “I'm not sure, don't act yet” a hundred times than be wrong once.

Set this up for someone Two minutes · nothing for them to install
Why this exists
Daniel Treacy

My mum bought something online that wasn't what it seemed. Only to be charged a substantial subscription she hadn't knowingly agreed to — buried in a confirmation email she'd already deleted.

Not long after, a friend from her yoga class was phished, and lost money trying to recover what had been taken.

Neither said anything straight away. They both felt foolish. They both waited. By the time they asked for help, the damage was done.

The question they needed was simple: Is this real?

It should take ten seconds to ask. Embarrassment makes it take days.

So I built what I wanted them to have: one saved contact. Anything they're not sure about. A plain answer in seconds.

No app. No judgement. No feeling foolish for checking.

Daniel Treacy · Sunshine Coast, Queensland · LinkedIn

Why it matters

The problem is real, and it's growing.

$2.18b

Lost to scams in Australia in 2025

Up 7.8% on the year before, across 481,523 reports.

National Anti-Scam Centre, Targeting Scams 2025
50%

Of reported losses begin online

Fake sites, texts and emails — arriving on the phone in their pocket, which is exactly where the check has to live.

ACCC / Scamwatch, Q1 2026
65+

Older Australians are hardest hit

Engineered around one moment: urgency plus isolation. A saved number to forward to removes the isolation.

Targeting Scams 2025
The part no app can do

Scams need her to be alone.
One word ends that.

Every scam checker in the world can tell you a link looks wrong. Only this one can put your daughter in the loop before you decide.

Margaret · 71, in Buderim

Is it a scam?
Your safety line
→
four seconds
later

You · at work, phone face down

Is it a scam?
Mum · family alert
Set this up for someone A family vote can never turn a scam into an all-clear.
Who decides

Not a chatbot. A rules engine that shows its work.

Every verdict comes from written rules with a reason you can read — the same message gets the same answer on a Tuesday as on a Friday. AI helps us read — a blurry photo, a PDF invoice, a rambling email. It never gets the final word.

A warning can't be talked out of
The AI layer may make a warning stronger. It is never permitted to turn one into “looks fine”.
A reason, every time
Not a vibe — a named rule, like the ones printed under the examples on this page.
The reasoning is published
Read exactly how a verdict is made → Including what we refuse to guess at.

See everything we check for → Including the scams that knock on the door, the subscription buried in a receipt, and how one family's forward warns every family.

Pricing

One quiet subscription.

You pay; they're protected. Checks are always unlimited. First month free, yearly gets up to three months free — then founding-family pricing, locked for life. Cancel any time.

For scale: the median phishing loss reported to Scamwatch in 2025 was about $2,000 — more than twelve years of the Family plan.

Two kinds of people, one price. Protected means someone who forwards messages and gets verdicts back — that's what the plan is sized by. Kept in the loop means everyone else who should know: they pay nothing, get a text when a scam is caught, and can answer an ASK.

Single

$12/month
or $99/year — three months free
  • One person protected — you, or someone you look out for
  • Plus 2 people kept in the loop, free
  • Unlimited checks by text, WhatsApp & email
Start free month
Best value

Family

$19/month
or $159/year — three months free
  • Up to 2 people protected
  • Plus 4 people kept in the loop, free
  • Everything in Single, one bill
  • Anyone free can answer an ASK
Start free month

Extended

$35/month
or $349/year — two months free
  • Up to 4 people protected
  • Plus 6 people kept in the loop, free
  • Everything in Family
  • Any sibling can manage settings
Start free month
For small business

Business

The invoice that looks right. The supplier whose “bank details have changed”. The “ATO” email in BAS week. Forward it before the money moves — it remembers which details each supplier uses, so a quiet change of account gets flagged even when the email reads perfectly, and the PDF invoice itself, read directly — four seats, unlimited checking by email and WhatsApp, and a tax invoice for a deductible expense.

$49/month
or $490/year — two months free
Start free month How it protects a business →
For organisations

Banks, insurers, firms & care providers

The same service, under your name, for the people you are responsible for — clients settling a property, families paying an aged care deposit, members you would rather not see lose money.

Priced per person covered, per month. One invoice.

  • One number and one email for your people to save, introduced by you — deliberately not yours
  • Nothing to install — they forward a message the way they send a photo
  • Sign-up links you hand out, so people enrol themselves — no member data changes hands
  • Verdicts in your voice, within our rules on what we will and won't say
  • Unlimited checks by text, WhatsApp and email
  • A portal, or the same feed over an API if your fraud team prefers — showing the campaigns reaching your people
  • A dated evidence record for a compliance file, an underwriter or an ombudsman
  • Aggregates only — never anyone's message content
Enterprise

Run it on your own address

Verdicts arrive from an address on your domain, not ours — inheriting your domain's protection against forged mail in a way an address on ours cannot. Dedicated numbers at scale. What it takes to set up

See how partnerships work

Retirement villages, seniors groups, clubs and councils too — same conversation. What setup involves →

Questions

The things people ask first.

What about scam phone calls?

Calls are where the biggest losses happen, and no filter can screen a voice call. But they can tell us what was said — “someone rang from the bank and wants me to move money to a safe account.” That description runs through the same engine, and the answer comes back the same calm way.

Can you read their texts?

No. We only ever see a message when they choose to forward it. Not their inbox, not their contacts. And you, as the person paying, don't see the content of their messages either — only a short alert when something is flagged.

What if you get it wrong?

Most scams follow patterns we catch reliably. When we're genuinely unsure, we never guess “safe” — we say be careful and tell them to hold off until they've checked with someone they trust. That's why most answers aren't a green tick, and it's on purpose.

What about romance scams? Would Mum really forward that?

This is the one shame usually wins — which is exactly why romance scams cost Australians the most. So we handle them differently, and we say so up front: when we catch one, the full warning goes to her, and to nobody else. No family alert, nothing on the dashboard, not even a count. It stays between us and her unless she replies TELL and chooses to share — and if she does, we say only that a scam was caught, never what kind. The scammer's whole method is “keep us secret.” We're the better secret-keeper, on her side. We never tell a family against the person's wishes — because the moment forwarding feels like telling on yourself, the costliest scams are the ones that never get checked.

Will my family be told every time I check something?

No — checking is yours. Nobody gets a text unless a scam is actually caught: a “be careful” or “looks fine” answer pings no one. The weekly family note shows numbers only — “5 checks, 1 scam caught” — and the family page shows short lines like “a fake parcel text,” never the message, never who sent it. Check ten times a day. That's what it's for.

Is it only romance scams that stay private?

No. Anything shame could feed on is invisible to the family: “we can recover your lost money” follow-ups — which would reveal a scam they were never told about — messages that coach secrecy, gambling lures. And the cruellest kind, blackmail threats, surface to no one at all: the full warning goes to the person, and there's no alert, no line on the family page, not even a count. Choosing to tell family is always theirs to make, never ours.

Can we ring you?

No — and we'd rather say so plainly than let a ringing tone raise anyone's hopes. The number we text from is a texting number, not a phone line: nobody answers it, for members or anyone else. That's the trade that lets us answer a text in about ten seconds at 2am, which no small phone line could ever do. If someone rings it anyway, they hear a short recorded message telling them exactly that, and what to do instead. When you need a human being, email hello@getforwardit.com — a real person answers, and that's the only door there is.

Does it work for a business?

Yes — invoices are where it earns its keep. The Business plan is four seats — you, a co-owner, the bookkeeper — and we read the PDF invoice itself. It remembers which account every supplier uses, so the quiet change of bank details gets flagged even when the email reads perfectly. And it's a tax invoice, not a personal subscription.

Isn't this just what I already do for free?

Partly — and that's the insight. It automates the “forward to my kid, get told don't click” loop you already run. The difference is it answers in ten seconds at 2am, on a work trip, or when you simply miss the message. It doesn't replace you; it covers the moments you can't.

More answers on how verdicts are made, what we check for and in the free guides — the “Hi Mum” trick, fake tolls, romance and investment lures. No signup, free to share.

Everyone should have someone to ask.

Two minutes to set up. The first message we send is a practice run that's impossible to fail.

Set this up for someone

Is it a scam? gives guidance, not a guarantee — a calm second opinion that doesn't replace your judgement, your bank's fraud team, or official advice from Scamwatch. Stop. Check. Protect.

Set this up for someone