About ScamBhai

ScamBhai is a free, independent service that helps people in India judge a suspicious message before they act on it, learn how common scams work, and warn each other. It is not a government website, a bank or the police, and it will never call you or ask for an OTP, a password or money.

What it does

• Check a message: paste a message or add a screenshot, in any of 24 languages, and get a score, an explanation and what to do next.
• Scam guide: how the common scams work, written for students, working adults, parents, older people and shopkeepers.
• Community: anonymous stories from people who received the same scam, masked before they are published.
• Trends: what people across India are checking right now, from anonymous counts.
• Family Shield: when a parent checks a message that looks like a scam, their son or daughter gets an alert, if the parent agrees.

Your privacy

Messages you check are not stored and there are no accounts. What ScamBhai keeps from checking, reading and posting is anonymous; only a complaint you choose to send can carry an email address, and only if you give one. The full privacy notice explains exactly what is handled, why and for how long.

How to read a result

A ScamBhai result is an automated opinion about how closely a message matches the tricks scammers use. It is not a guarantee, a verification or professional advice, and ScamBhai never certifies any message as safe. A low score means few warning signs were found, not that the message is genuine. Before you pay, share a code or install anything, check with the bank, company or office on a number or app you find yourself. Fixed safety rules also look for classic signs, such as a request to share an OTP or to install a screen-sharing app, so that no message can talk its way to a low score.

Who runs it and how it is paid for

ScamBhai is an independent project run from India. It is not linked to any bank, payment company, telecom operator or government body. Checking, the guide, the community and the trends are free. Money comes from two places: Family Shield passes for families who want unlimited alerts, and licences that let banks, insurers and security companies use anonymous scam trends. ScamBhai carries no advertising and never sells personal data.

Lost money?

Call 1930 at once and report at cybercrime.gov.in. For fraud calls and messages where nothing is lost yet, use Chakshu on sancharsaathi.gov.in. ScamBhai cannot recover money, and anyone who offers to recover it for a fee is running another scam.

Contact

Write to scambhai@proton.me. How your information is handled is set out in the privacy notice; the rules for using the site are in the terms.

Grievance Officer

The quickest way to complain is the complaint form: it gives you a reference number at once, and urgent complaints are reviewed first. Where an automatic first check finds that a post plainly shows private details, an intimate image or an impersonation, the post may be hidden at once until the Grievance Officer decides; other complaints are reviewed within the time below. Complaints about anything on ScamBhai, including a request to remove a community post, a privacy request or a payment problem, can also go to the Grievance Officer: B. Parikh, scambhai@proton.me. The Grievance Officer also answers questions about how ScamBhai handles personal data. Please write rather than call where you can, and remember this is not a helpline for recovering money: for that, call 1930. We acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours. A request to remove content is resolved within 36 hours and any other complaint within 7 days. A complaint that a post shows intimate images of someone or impersonates a person is decided within 2 hours, and one that a post exposes someone's private information as soon as we can and within 36 hours. Orders from a court or an authorised government officer are acted on within 3 hours. If you are not satisfied with our answer about your personal data, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India.