We've paused the Ask Arthur scam checker to put everything into Clone Watch

As of this week, the Ask Arthur scam checker is paused. So are the browser extension, the chat bots on Telegram and Messenger, and the charity check. If you go to one of those pages you'll see a short note pointing you here.

What keeps running is Clone Watch, the part of Ask Arthur that looks for fake copies of Australian brands' websites and gets them reported and taken down. This post explains why we made that call.

The checker was useful, but it's no longer rare

When we started, checking whether a message or link was a scam took real effort. You pasted it into a search engine, read three forum threads, and still weren't sure.

That's changed. Gmail flags most phishing before you see it. Chrome blocks known scam sites with Safe Browsing. Phones now warn about scam calls and texts as they arrive. Ask a general-purpose AI assistant "is this a scam?" and you'll usually get a sensible answer.

We could keep building a better checker. But a better version of something people already get free from the tools on their phone isn't the best use of a small team. Fewer people needed it each month, and we'd rather say that plainly than keep a product running for its own sake.

The part nobody else is doing

Clone Watch works earlier in the chain. Every day, hundreds of thousands of new domain names are registered. Some are copies of real Australian brands: a bank, a retailer, a government service. They're set up to collect logins and card numbers.

Clone Watch checks the new names against the brands we watch. It scans the ones that look like copies and tracks them over time. When one turns into a working scam site, we report it to the companies that can block or remove it.

Since we started, Clone Watch has flagged more than 4,000 lookalike domains across more than 200 Australian brands. Around 200 of them went on to become working scam sites, and we reported them to the companies that can take them down. More than 100 have been taken down. You can see the monthly numbers on the Clone Watch page.

The people who lose money to these sites never get a warning from their inbox. The site is new, so no blocklist knows it yet. That gap is where we can help most.

Why now

Australia's new Scams Prevention Framework asks banks, telcos and digital platforms to actively look for scams that impersonate them, and to act to remove them. Large organisations already pay for this kind of monitoring. Smaller banks, mutuals, credit unions and telcos have the same obligation without the same budget. Clone Watch is built for them.

What happens to the rest

Nothing has been deleted. Everything Ask Arthur built is still in the code, switched off rather than removed. The data is archived and verified in two places. We've written down every step needed to bring each feature back, and tested the restore.

If something we've paused turns out to be needed again, it can come back. For now, we'd rather do one thing properly than many things thinly.

If you used the checker

Thank you. Every message you checked helped us understand how scams are changing. If you get something suspicious today, we'd suggest:

• Don't click, don't reply. Go to the organisation's real website or app yourself.
• Report it to Scamwatch. If you've lost money, contact your bank straight away, then ReportCyber.
• Forward scam texts to the ACMA on 0429 999 888 so they can be traced and blocked.

If you run a brand

If you'd like to know whether someone is copying your website right now, get in touch. We'll show you what Clone Watch has found for your brand.