Our checks follow the categories published by the ACCC's National Anti-Scam Centre, with the Australian details that matter — real sender IDs, real institution web addresses, local payment rails like PayID and BPAY.
Impersonation & phishing
Someone pretending to be an organisation you trust
Banks, myGov, the ATO, Australia Post, tolls, NBN and supermarkets
Lookalike web addresses — off by a letter, an extra dot, a foreign character
Sender names copying the real one, checked against ACMA's register
"Verify your account or it will be suspended" credential traps
Parcel and toll fee links, QR-code tricks, shortened links
Family & relationship
Someone pretending to be a person you love
"Hi Mum" new-number tricks
Hacked accounts — a link from a friend's real address, sent by whoever took it over
Family emergency calls, including copied-voice ones
Romance and advance-fee stories — customs fees, flights, medical bills
Money movement
Getting your money somewhere you can't get it back
"Safe account" transfers — the one your bank will never ask for
"Our bank details have changed" invoice and payroll fraud
First-time payment details at settlement — the invoice fraud that claims nothing changed
"Ignore the no-match" coaching that talks you past your bank's name check
Gift card and cryptocurrency demands
PayID buyer tricks and overpayment refund cons
Investment & gambling
Offers that promise what nothing real can
Guaranteed returns, VIP signal groups, celebrity-endorsement claims
Illegal online pokies and casino sites ("scambling")
Superannuation
The biggest balance most people have, and the one they check least
"Unlock your super early" and fake preservation-age rule changes
Rollovers into a self-managed fund you didn't ask for, and crypto "high-growth" pitches
Anyone who contacted you asking for your tax file number or member number
"Free super review" and consolidation calls — typed in, if it came by phone
Fund impersonation, and the "your super is at risk, move it somewhere safe" messages that follow every publicised breach
Threats & pressure
Frightening you into acting before you think
Arrest warrants, fines and prosecution threats
Webcam blackmail emails that quote your real details
Electricity and utility disconnection threats
Remote-access requests — "install this so we can fix it"
Unexpected money & work
Good news that costs you something
Prize and lottery wins you never entered
Surprise inheritances and rebate claims
"No experience needed" job lures
Money-mule "jobs" that rent your bank account
Fake subscription renewals (the antivirus invoice con)
Recovery scams offering to get scammed money back for a fee
Every check also looks past the words: how old the web address is, whether it's been reported as malicious, whether the email really came from who it claims. New patterns are added as they appear — that's our job, not theirs.
Every line above has a working detector behind it. The list is not marketing: a test suite runs a representative message for each claim on this page through the engine and fails the build if the claim is not detected. A category cannot be added here without the code that catches it. How a verdict is made →