Paste the text, the email, or just the link. Rowan reads it and tells you, in plain English, what it sees and what to do next.
You don’t have to be sure before you ask. Not being sure is the whole reason to.
Or text it to (415) 324-4106 and get the answer back in the same thread.
Some scams follow the calendar. These are the ones tied to this time of year, each taken from the agency’s own warning.
Medicare Open Enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7. The FTC warns that people pretending to be from Medicare use the season to get in touch out of the blue, say you need a “new” or “updated” Medicare card, and ask for your Medicare number, bank account or credit card number.
In the FTC’s words, “true Medicare representatives won’t call, text, or email you out of the blue to ask for your numbers or a payment.” Medicare cards are free and come in the mail.
Source: FTC consumer alert: Medicare Open Enrollment season (September 30, 2025)
Social Security’s yearly cost-of-living notices arrive late in the year, and there’s nothing to apply for. For the 2026 increase, Social Security said the notices would be available online to most people, in the Message Center of their my Social Security account, from late November; people can also get them by mail.
Social Security’s inspector general warns that criminals use the increase as bait, offering people the chance to apply for extra money or to set up an online account, by phone, email, text, social media or mail. Its advice: never click the link, and don’t give personal information, even if whoever contacted you already knows some of it.
In Social Security’s own words, “no government agency or reputable company will solicit your personal information or request advanced fees for services in the form of wire transfers or gift cards.”
Source: Social Security: Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) information for 2026 (published for the 2026 increase)SSA Office of the Inspector General: “Offers to Increase Your Social Security Benefit Are from Criminals” (October 20, 2022)
None of these proves anything on its own — real messages from real companies do some of them too. They are the things worth slowing down for.
A deadline today, an account about to close, a fee that has to be paid before something bad happens. Urgency is what stops someone checking with another person, which is why it is in almost every one of these.
Gift cards, crypto, a wire, a payment app to someone you have not met. Some real businesses do take a wire or an app — the tell is being pushed toward one of these and away from a card or a normal bill, because that is the money hardest to chase once it is gone.
The name in the message and the address behind the link do not match — an extra word, a different ending, a lookalike spelling. Press and hold a link to read where it actually goes before you tap it.
A grandchild in trouble, a boss asking for a favour, a bank you bank with — from a number that has never texted you before. A familiar-looking number proves nothing either; they are easy to fake.
A delivery you did not order, a payment you did not make, a login you did not attempt. The message needs you worried enough to click, so it invents something to be worried about.
When a message worries you, check with the company yourself — using a number you already know is genuine. The back of your card, a statement, an app you already had installed, or their address typed in by hand. Not the number in the message, and not a search result that merely looks like them.
Neither one is a reason to feel foolish, and both are worth acting on today rather than tomorrow.
Replying is not the same as paying, and on its own it does not hand anyone your money. What it does confirm is that a real person reads this number, which usually means more attempts — from other numbers too. Stop replying, block the number, and don’t send a photo, a code, or a document to whoever it was.
Sometimes it can be stopped and sometimes it can’t — what decides it is usually how quickly someone is told. Who to call depends on how the money left:
More on what to ask each one for, and how long you have.
Reach every one of them on a number you already know is genuine — the back of the card, a statement, an app you already had installed, or their site typed in by hand. Fraudulent “support” lines are set up to be found by people searching in a hurry, and calling one turns a bad day into a worse one.
Then report it at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and at ic3.gov if crypto was involved. Reports are how these operations get identified.
Pasting is live — that’s the box above — and so is texting. Email isn’t switched on yet, so there is deliberately no address on this page to save. We’d rather say “not yet” than hand you a mailbox that never answers.
Copy the message into the box above and tap Check it. The answer comes back on this page — nothing to install, nothing to sign into.
Send a suspicious email on to Rowan and get the answer back as a reply, in the thread it arrived in. The mailbox isn’t open yet.
Text it to (415) 324-4106. Forward the message from the phone it landed on, and get the answer back in the same thread.
There’s nothing to sign into, and Rowan doesn’t keep the message you paste. Read the answer and close the tab.
You get the specific things that set it off — the hurry, the way it wants to be paid, a link that isn’t the company it claims to be.
Rowan can read one wrong. If a message still bothers you after a calm answer, go with that — call the company back on a number you already had.
What we hold, and for how long, is written out in the Privacy Policy.
From its 2025 Internet Crime Report. We haven’t rounded any of them up.
Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report (over-60 section).
A patient investment con — months of friendship, small "test" trades that show fake gains, then one urgent transfer.
Read the guideA relationship built over months, then a first small emergency, then asks that get bigger each time.
Read the guideA pop-up or a call about an infected computer, remote access, and a bill that has to be paid in gift cards.
Read the guideA call claiming to be a government agency, a threat of arrest or a frozen account, and a payment that has to happen immediately.
Read the guideA win or a windfall that only needs one fee paid first — and then another, and another.
Read the guideLook at what it wants and how fast it wants it. Most of these are in a hurry, ask to be paid a way that is hard to get back, or send you to a link that is not quite the company it names. The signs above cover the ones worth knowing by heart — and if you would rather not decide alone, paste the message into the box at the top of this page.
This page is one. It is free to use, there is no account to make and nothing to install — paste the message, and Rowan tells you in plain English what it sees and what to do next. We don’t keep the message you paste.
No. The checker is this page, in whatever browser you are already reading it in — on a phone as readily as a laptop. Rowan does have an app, but it is for something else: watching an older parent’s accounts over time, which is a different job from reading one message.
Not on its own — this checks the message, not the number it came from. Paste what they sent and we can tell you a great deal; hand us the number by itself and we cannot, because a number tells you almost nothing. Plenty of scam texts arrive from ordinary numbers, and a number that looks familiar is often spoofed.
No. There is nothing to sign into here, and Rowan doesn’t keep what you paste — read the answer and close the tab. What we hold, and for how long, is written out in the Privacy Policy.
The messages you never see are the ones that worry us. Rowan watches an aging parent’s accounts for the patterns that drain a life’s savings, and tells the person who’d want to know — read-only, and nothing for her to install.
We’re setting Rowan up personally with a small group of families first. Tell us a little about who you’d be watching over and we’ll write to you — no card, and Second Look stays free either way.
Or see how the watching works first.