Re:scam is an AI chatbot designed to do the one thing you shouldn’t: reply to scams. When you forward any  suspicious emails to Re:scam, it identifies scam emails and then begins a never-ending conversation with the scammer so they waste their time talking to a chatbot instead of real targets.

Re:scam uses IBM Watson to analyse emails and add to its ever growing vocabulary. With multiple personalities and the ability to generate false account information (including credit card numbers, bank account information and postal addresses) there's no way for scammers to know they're talking to computer.

Users can check up on and share the conversations they initiate, fuelling an important global conversation. This constant flow of emails from scammers provides entertaining content but also up to the minute data on trending scams. Re:scam is using this to educate people through social media, and shares all scammer information with cybercrime agencies.

After a year of development and testing Re:scam was unleashed on the world’s scammers.

We first shared Re:scam with local television news and then released a video online in which Re:scam introduced itself to the world, with one simple instruction: forward scams to me@rescam.org.

Within 24 hours of going live Re:scam had gone global. As hoped, Re:scam had people talking about scamming everywhere.

Re:scam joined the conversation through various social media accounts which it uses to educate and update followers and influencers on scams and how to avoid them.

At rescam.org people can meet the chatbot ‘faces to face'. It features our favourite conversations and updates on the amount of time the project has wasted. Through rescam.org people can connect to Netsafe for advice and victim support.

With the steady flow of incoming scammer data is shared with cybercrime fighting agencies like The Police, Interpol and The FBI.

At last check, Re:scam has earned over 279 million impressions and started an ongoing global conversation around email scams. Through email correspondence and social media it continues to educate millions on the changing face of online scams.

To date Re:scam has sent more than a million emails to scammers, wasting a total of more than 5 years of their time.

The constant flow of data being collected on trending scams, scammer’s techniques and IP addresses is provided to national and global cybercrime agencies.

As well as this, Re:scam has become a point of contact for people who are being scammed and haven't talked to authorities. These victims are all referred straight to Netsafe where they get the right advice and support.