Terms of use.

Who we are

SecureSmarter (securesmarter.com) is based in Queensland, Australia. “We”, “us” and “our” mean SecureSmarter. “You” means anyone who uses the site.

By using SecureSmarter, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the site. Our privacy page explains what we do with your information.

What SecureSmarter is

A free site that helps you spot scams and stay secure. It has:

• games: HOAX, BOT, LURE, DUPE, ACE and GIST, plus Shuffle, which mixes them all
• free tools, like Is this a scam?, the email checker, the password checker and generator, the link checker, the fake link finder, the QR code checker, the family safe word maker and the security checkup
• weekly scam and hack pages, true stories and a live dashboard
• a form to report a scam

There are no accounts, and nothing on the site costs money. Team plans for businesses are on the way (see below).

For learning, not advice

Everything on SecureSmarter is general information to help you learn. It isn’t professional security, legal, financial or other advice, and it doesn’t know your situation.

If you think you’ve been scammed, call your bank straight away, on the number on your card or in its app. Then report it to the police or your country’s official scam service.

Our tools and alerts can be wrong

We work hard to make our games, tools and pages accurate and useful. But:

• Is this a scam? uses AI, and AI makes mistakes. It can miss a scam, or flag a real message.
• Our link, QR and email checkers only see what’s in front of them. Scammers change their tricks all the time, so a clean result doesn’t prove something is safe.
• Password crack times are estimates. Real attacks can be faster or slower.
• Scam and hack alerts can be late, incomplete or wrong. Most of our “Just in” lines are written by AI from official alerts, so read the original before you act.

So never rely on SecureSmarter alone. Before you pay, tap a link or share your details, check with the real company or person yourself, using a phone number, website or app you already know. Never use the details in the message.

What we promise, and what we can’t

We promise to try hard. We can’t promise a result. Using SecureSmarter doesn’t guarantee you won’t be scammed or hacked.

We also can’t promise the site will always be available, or free of mistakes and bugs. As far as the law allows, we provide the site “as is”.

Playing fair

Please don’t:

• send fake, spam or abusive reports, or anything illegal
• send other people’s private details, like a friend’s phone number or address
• use bots to copy the site in bulk (search engines are welcome)
• attack, overload or try to break into the site or the services behind it, or try to get around our limits
• use our games, examples or tools to trick, scam or harm anyone

If you do, we may block you and delete what you sent.

What you send us

When you send a report, you’re telling us you’re allowed to share it. You let us store it and use it to count scams, learn which ones are going around and write about the scams we see. We never publish your report or your screenshot.

Anything you paste into Is this a scam? is only used to answer you.

Our content

The games, rounds, writing, pictures, icons, logo, code and design on SecureSmarter are ours, or we use them with permission.

You’re welcome to share links, your scores and challenge links, and to use the site to learn or to teach your family, friends or team. Please ask us first before you copy our games or pages, pass our work off as your own, or use our name or logo in a way that suggests we back you.

Other people’s content, and AI

• Photos. The photos on our true stories pages and the real photos in BOT come from Wikimedia Commons, and stay under their own licences. Each one is credited with its author or source and its licence, and links to the original.
• Old writing. The human writing in BOT was published before 1929, and it’s credited too.
• Brand names. Our games and examples use real brand names to show what scams look like. We’re not linked to those brands, and we don’t use their logos.
• Facts and figures. Alerts, figures and stories come from the sources linked on each page.
• AI. We use AI to help make some of the site, like game rounds, pictures, voices and alert lines. AI pictures and voices are labelled: the voices in HOAX are AI voices reading our scripts, and the AI photos in BOT are marked as AI.

Spotted a mistake, or think we’ve used something of yours without permission? Email us and we’ll fix it.

Links to other sites

We link to official sources, news stories and other sites. We don’t control them and we aren’t responsible for what’s on them. Their own terms and privacy rules apply.

Team plans

Team plans for businesses are coming. For now there’s only a waitlist. Nothing is for sale yet, and joining the waitlist doesn’t commit you to anything. Prices on the site are a guide and may change.

When team plans go on sale, they’ll come with their own terms, which you’ll see before you pay.

Changes to the site

We may add, change, pause or remove any part of SecureSmarter, including games and tools, at any time.

Your rights under consumer law

Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law, or any other law, that can’t be excluded. For example, under the Australian Consumer Law, services can come with guarantees that can’t be excluded, like the guarantee that they’ll be provided with due care and skill.

If you use SecureSmarter for a business, and the service isn’t the kind usually used for personal, domestic or household purposes, then where the law allows, our liability for failing a consumer guarantee is limited to supplying the service again, or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

Limits on our liability

Apart from the rights above, and as far as the law allows:

• we aren’t liable for any loss or damage that comes from using, or relying on, SecureSmarter, its games, tools, content or alerts. That includes money lost to a scam or a hack, lost data, lost profits, and any indirect or consequential loss.
• if we are liable to you for anything to do with SecureSmarter, our total liability is limited to A$100, or to what you paid us in the 12 months before your claim, if that’s more.

These limits apply to any kind of claim, including negligence.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The date at the top shows the latest version. If we make a big change, we’ll say so on the site. If you keep using SecureSmarter after a change, the new terms apply.

The law that applies

These terms are governed by the law of Queensland, Australia, and the courts of Queensland can hear any dispute about them.

If you live outside Australia, you may also have rights under your own country’s consumer laws. These terms don’t take those away.

If a court decides part of these terms can’t apply, the rest still does.