What is this?
In 2026, authors across the UK began noticing a pattern of weird emails coming in. Over-flattering and seemingly well-researched...well, at least until you realise they've only worked everything out from your public blurb, and are trying to sell you a service costing thousands of dollars.
This tool checks emails against known scam patterns and a database of reports from other authors. It's free and run by Sophia Smith Galer, a fed-up author.
Privacy Policy
This tool is operated by Sophia Smith Galer trading as Viralect. If you have questions, contact sophia@viralect.com.
What we collect and why: When you submit a report, we collect your name, email address, and optionally your publisher. We use this to verify that reports come from real authors and to follow up if we need more detail about a submission. We also collect the email content you paste in, the sender's display name, email address, and subject line. This forms the shared database that powers the tool.
If you tick the marketing opt-in, we add your email to Viralect's mailing list for occasional updates about tools and services. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Legal basis: We process your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests (operating a public-interest scam-reporting resource) and, for marketing, your explicit consent.
How long we keep it: Report data is kept for as long as the tool is active. Your personal details (name, email) can be deleted on request. Email us at sophia@viralect.com.
Who we share it with: We don't sell your data or share it with third parties for marketing. Report data may be shared in anonymised or aggregated form with journalists or researchers investigating this scam operation.
Your rights: Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data. Contact sophia@viralect.com.
Disclaimer
Reports submitted to this tool are unverified user submissions. Stop Scamming Authors and Viralect make no guarantee that any reported email address belongs to a scammer. If you believe your email address has been incorrectly reported, contact sophia@viralect.com and we will investigate and remove it if appropriate.
Email risk scores are generated by pattern-matching against documented scam cases. They are indicative only and should not be treated as a definitive determination that any email is or is not a scam.