Is This a Scam?

Is This a Scam? is a simple web app built to help people, especially older adults, pause before responding to suspicious texts, emails or screenshots. Paste a message or upload a screenshot, press one button, and get a plain-language result: Likely Scam, Be Careful, or Looks OK. The app points out warning signs, suggests a safer next step, can read the answer aloud, and starts a family-share message for a second opinion. Under the hood, a small rules engine checks familiar scam patterns and Meta's Muse Spark analyzes messages and images. The app keeps the more cautious verdict when the rules and model disagree; if the API fails, text rules provide a limited fallback. The tool does not verify sender identity, and Looks OK is not a guarantee that a message is safe. I built this as a solo Indie Developer project, with AI coding assistants helping write code, tests and the demo. The public GitHub version is the original prototype, with 12 predefined examples passing the recorded live sample test. A separate photo-hardening candidate is still under review and is not part of this submission.