Scam Shield: AI-Powered Student Scam Detection

Inspiration

Students regularly receive internship offers, scholarship messages, recruiter DMs, and certification opportunities. Many of these appear genuine but are actually scams designed to steal money or personal information. We wanted to build a tool that helps students verify opportunities before trusting them.

What it does

Scam Shield uses Google Gemini to analyze suspicious messages, screenshots, offer letters, and URLs. It provides: Risk Score Scam Classification Key Red Flags AI Explanation Recommended Next Steps Users can also report scams to a community database to improve awareness of emerging fraud patterns.

How we built it

Frontend: React.js , Tailwind CSS , Tan stack Router, Shad Cn UI component library. Backend: Node.js , Tan Stack start server function Database: Supa base AI: Google Gemini 2.5 flash , Gemini vision. Gemini analyzes submitted content and identifies scam indicators such as urgency tactics, payment requests, unrealistic promises, and suspicious recruiter behavior.

Challenges we ran into

Detecting scams based on context instead of simple keywords. Handling multiple input types (text, screenshots, URLs) Integrating Gemini, frontend, backend, and database within a limited hackathon timeframe.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

One accomplishment we're particularly proud of is building a working AI-powered solution that goes beyond simple keyword detection and can analyze real-world internship offers, recruiter messages, screenshots, and URLs using Google Gemini.

What we learned

We learned how to integrate Google Gemini into a real-world application, build a full-stack AI workflow using React, Node.js, and Supa base, and design solutions around actual user problems rather than just technology.

What's next for Scam Shield: AI-Powered Student Scam Detection.

Future improvements include a browser extension, email integration, multilingual support, and a growing community scam database. Our vision is to make Scam Shield a trusted companion for students evaluating online opportunities.

Built With

• geminiapi
• node.js
• react
• shadcnui
• supabase
• tailwindcss
• tanstack-start-router
• tanstackrouter
• tanstackstart
• typescript