One trending tactic among scammers involves sending fraudulent text messages, either directly to your phone or through messaging apps and social media sites. These messages often solicit or demand money and link out to scammy sites. To help you spot these scams, we’ve now added new capabilities to Circle to Search and Lens that will help you see the telltale signs so you can avoid getting deceived. Here’s how to use it:

To use this with Circle to Search:

• Simply long press the home button or navigation bar of your Android device
• Circle the suspicious text

This capability is also available through Lens, via the Google app (Android and iOS) with three short steps:

• Take a screenshot of the message
• Open Lens in the Google app
• Tap the screenshot

After you follow these steps on your device, our systems will use AI and information from the web to assess whether the message is likely a scam. You’ll see an overview with guidance and insights including suggested next steps.

This capability is available globally in Circle to Search and Lens, and will appear when our systems have high confidence in the quality of the response.