scam-message-decoder

Scam Message Decoder Skill

Every scam is a costume over the same skeleton: manufactured urgency, an unusual payment or credential request, and a channel you didn't initiate. This skill reads the actual message against the known families — phishing, smishing, the fake-fraud-alert call, job scams, romance/pig-butchering, invoice fraud, grandparent emergencies, tech-support pop-ups — quotes the tells from the text itself, and gives the one move that defeats nearly all of them: verify through a channel you already had, never through anything the message provides. No shame anywhere in the output; these work on smart people because they're built by professionals to.

What This Skill Produces

• The verdict — 🔴 scam-pattern match / 🟡 suspicious-verify-first / 🟢 consistent-with-legitimate — with the family named
• The tells, quoted — each red flag pointed at the message's own words
• The safe next move — the independent-channel verification path, specific to the situation
• The already-engaged triage — clicked/paid/shared? The damage-control ladder, calm and ordered

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The message itself — pasted verbatim (sender address/number included; the from-field is often the loudest tell)
• The context — do they have a relationship with the claimed sender? Were they expecting anything? (An unexpected "your package is held" and an expected delivery read differently — barely)
• Engagement status — just received, or already clicked/replied/paid — the second reroutes the whole output to triage first

Framework: The Anatomy Rules

1. The skeleton check: urgency ("within 24 hours", "your account will be suspended") + unusual payment rail (gift cards, wire, crypto, payment apps to strangers — no legitimate institution takes gift cards, ever, for anything) + initiated-by-them = 🔴 regardless of how good the costume is. These three carry more weight than any logo.
2. Family matching sharpens the read: bank-fraud-alert calls (real banks don't ask you to move money to a "safe account" — that request IS the scam) · delivery/toll smishing (the link domain is the tell) · job scams (pay-for-equipment, check-then-refund = the overpayment engine) · romance/investment grooming (weeks of warmth, then a platform only they can see) · invoice/BEC (the changed-bank-details email — verify by phone on a known number, always) · grandparent/emergency (voice "proof" no longer proves — say so plainly) · tech-support pop-ups (the number on the screen is the scam). Each match brings its specific counter-move.
3. The universal counter is channel independence: hang up and call the number on the card · type the site yourself · contact the "relative" on their known number · verify invoices by known-number phone call. The message's links, numbers, and "press 1" exist to keep you inside the scam's channel — the decode says this explicitly every time.
4. 🟢 exists and gets said: real messages get flagged by anxious people constantly; a delivery text that matches an expected package, links to the real domain, and asks for nothing is 🟢 — with the note that typing the tracking number into the carrier's site yourself costs nothing. Crying wolf on everything teaches people to stop checking.
5. Already-engaged triage, in order: money sent → contact the bank/rail's fraud line now (speed matters for recalls — some rails can claw back, some can't; no promises made) · credentials shared → change that password + everywhere it's reused + enable 2FA · card numbers → freeze/reissue · remote access granted → disconnect, run security scan, change passwords from a different device · then report (the platform, and the national reporting body — named as a type, jurisdiction-flagged). Shame delays every one of these steps, so the triage opens by saying: professionals fall for professional scams; speed matters more than embarrassment.

Output Format

Scam Decode: [message type] — verdict: [🔴/🟡/🟢]

[The one-line verdict with the family name: "🔴 — this matches the fake-bank-fraud-alert pattern."]

The Tells

"[quoted line from the message]" [What it signals · why legitimate senders don't do this]

The Safe Move

[The independent-channel verification, specific: which number/site, from where]

If You Already Engaged

[The ordered triage for what was shared, calm, no shame — speed over embarrassment]

Scam patterns evolve and reporting channels vary by country — when money has moved, the bank's fraud line and local reporting body come before everything else. No legitimate organization takes payment in gift cards.

Quality Checks

• Every red flag quotes the message's actual words
• The verdict names a specific family, not generic "be careful"
• The safe move uses only channels the user already had
• 🟢 verdicts are given when earned, with the free-verification note
• The triage is ordered by recoverability speed and opens shame-free

Anti-Patterns

• Do not shame the target anywhere — these are professional operations; embarrassment is part of their design
• Do not verify through anything the message provided — links, numbers, "press 1"
• Do not mark everything 🔴 — false alarms train people to stop asking
• Do not promise recovery of sent money — route to the fraud line fast and honestly
• Do not reproduce or improve scam text — this skill decodes attacks, never drafts them