Free — no signup
Email Scam Checker
Paste an email address, or the full email including headers. GACS scores it against 1,700+ confirmed scams plus homograph, impersonation and phishing heuristics.
How the email checker works
The checker parses the sender address, normalizes the domain using the same IDN / punycode canonicalization we use for URL scam lookups, then queries the GACS blacklist database for any confirmed scam entity that matches the sender or any link found in the body. On top of that it runs deterministic phishing heuristics: brand impersonation from freemail accounts, Reply-To mismatch, urgency language, credential and payment requests, and insecure http:// links.
What to paste
- The sender address on its own (e.g.
alerts@paypa1-secure.com). - Or the full email — copy the "Show original" / "View source" version from your mail client so we can see
From,Subject,Reply-To, and the body.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if an email is a scam?
Paste the full email — including the From, Subject, and Reply-To headers when you have them — into the checker above. GACS normalizes the sender domain, looks it up against 1,700+ confirmed scams, flags IDN/homograph spoofs, and scores urgency, credential requests, and brand impersonation heuristics.
What signals does the email checker use?
Sender-domain blacklist hits, look-alike domains (Cyrillic/Greek characters that mimic Latin letters), Reply-To mismatch, brand impersonation from freemail accounts, urgency and fear language, credential and payment requests, and http:// links used in place of https://.
Is the email checker free?
Yes. No signup, no card. GACS runs on donations and paid diplomas so the scam-checker tools stay free for anyone.
Authoritative sources
Independent primary sources used to check and corroborate the guidance on this page.
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
Official US channel for reporting internet-enabled fraud and cybercrime.
- US Federal Trade Commission — ReportFraud
Consumer fraud reporting and published enforcement data.
- UK Action Fraud
UK national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime.
- Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre
Canada's central repository for fraud reports and scam alerts.
