Scamnextstep exists for one moment: the minutes after something feels wrong. A caller who says you are under arrest. A message saying your KYC has expired. A payment that has already left your account.
In that moment most people search the internet, and what they find is either a news story about someone else, or a company trying to sell them something. This site is neither, and it does two things.
The guides answer the same three questions every time: what is actually happening, how do you check it, and what do you do in the next hour. And if the answer is still not obvious, you can send us the call, the message, the link or the app, and we will check it ourselves and tell you what it is. No charge, no sign-up, and nothing sold to you at the end of it.
Anyone who does any of the above, including anyone claiming to be from this site, is running a scam on you. Recovery-fraud is a real and growing category that targets people who have already been victimised once.
If you are not sure whether a call, message, link, app or file is real, send it to us and we will tell you what it is. Free, and there is no sales conversation afterwards.
What we do is investigate the public record and tell you what it shows: domain registrations, app publishers, company registries, where a profile photo really came from. What we cannot do is compel anyone, freeze an account, or recover money that has already gone. Anyone promising you that is running the second scam. If money has already moved, call 1930 before you contact us. A bank freeze is faster than we are, and it is what gets your money back.
The contact page covers what to send, what never to send, and what happens to it afterwards.
Two people, named, with our faces on this page and on every guide. That is deliberate. On a subject where bad advice costs someone their savings, you should know who is accountable for what you read here, and you should know who is on the other end when you send something in.
Leads the research and investigation work behind the site, turning complex cybercrime patterns into practical guidance people can use. A founding member and treasurer of CopConnect Karnataka, with experience in OSINT, cybercrime investigations and fraud analysis. He shapes how scam infrastructure is traced, from domains and publishers to registries and reused images, and how the findings are made clear, useful and actionable.
Leads the editorial direction of the site, turning complex security, compliance and scam-related information into practical guidance people can use. Twenty years across IT infrastructure, networking and platform engineering, working in security since 2023. He decides which threats need urgent coverage, shapes the first-hour guidance so it is clear under pressure, and verifies claims against the primary sources, including RBI, UIDAI, the DPDP Act and I4C.
Neither of us claims to speak for a bank, a police force or a government department, and this site is not the output of a company. It is two people writing down what they know, with their names on it.
Scamnextstep is run by Ashok Kamat and Sai Samarth in their personal capacity. Both work in cybersecurity, and both also work at a security consultancy in Bengaluru, where Ashok is a co-founder and Sai is a cybercrime consultant. That firm has no part in this site. It does not run it, does not sell it, has no say in what gets published here, and is not responsible for any of it. The reason for saying so is that you should know where the people writing this earn a living, so you can judge what you read accordingly.
This site is a community initiative. Everything on it is free for individuals: the guides, the checker, and having something verified. We do not charge a person who has been scammed, and we never will. We do offer two paid services to organisations, incident response and brand protection, which are kept separate for exactly that reason. Nothing here is professional advice about your specific situation.
Scam scripts change, helpline procedures change, and we get things wrong sometimes. If you find an error, tell us and we will fix it and note the change on the page. Guides carry a visible "Updated" date whenever they have been revised. How we source, what we refuse to publish and how corrections are made is set out in full in our editorial policy.
Call 1930, the national cyber crime helpline operated by I4C under the Ministry of Home Affairs, then file a formal complaint at cybercrime.gov.in. We are not a reporting channel and cannot act on your complaint.