How we handle your story

A person reads everything

Every submission is read by a member of our team before it appears anywhere. Nothing is published automatically.

Where we use software, and where we do not

We are straightforward about this because you are trusting us with something difficult. We use an AI model to draft the parts of a story page that are ours rather than yours: the headline, the topic labels, the content warning, and the note from us that sits alongside your account. It also flags personal information and possible signs that a writer is at risk, so a person sees them quickly.

It does not write, rewrite, shorten or reword your story, and it never decides what is published. Everything it drafts is reviewed and edited by a person, and every decision about your story is made by a person.

We remove identifying details

Before a story goes up we take out anything that could identify you or someone else: names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, employers, account numbers, and similar. You choose your own pseudonym and give only a general location.

We edit lightly, and we keep your voice

We do not rewrite your story, reshape it, or put words in your mouth. Sometimes we tidy spelling or reword a sentence that is hard to follow. Beyond that we leave stories as they were written. The voice belongs to the person who lived it, and we would rather publish something rough and real than something polished into someone else’s words. Swearing usually stays, because anger is often the truest part of an account. We remove slurs and language aimed at degrading a group of people.

We will not promise never to change a word, because it is a promise we could not always keep. The notification email you give us is deleted as soon as your story is reviewed, so once something is published we often have no way to reach you and ask. What we promise instead: if you leave us an email, we will tell you what we changed before it goes live. If you do not, we make the smallest change that lets us publish it safely, and leave the rest alone.

Writing about suicide and self-harm

Some of what people send us touches on not wanting to go on. That is part of what happens to people after fraud, and we would rather publish it honestly than pretend otherwise. We follow published safe messaging guidance when we do, because the way these things are described measurably affects readers.

In practice: we do not publish descriptions of method, means or preparation, and this is the one place we will remove part of an account outright. We do not frame suicide as an escape or as an understandable response to a loss. We do not write headlines that gesture at it. We add a content warning, and we show crisis support alongside the story. If something you send us suggests you are at risk, and you have left us a way to reach you, a person will write to you before anything else happens with your story.

We are not a crisis service and we are not counsellors. What we can do is point you to people who are, and we always will.

We do not verify claims

These are personal accounts of what people experienced. We are not an investigative body and we do not attempt to confirm the details of any story. Please read them as first-hand experiences rather than as established fact.

Naming companies and people

We do not name individuals as scammers. Where a scammer impersonated a company, we may name that company, because the impersonation is the useful part and the company is a target too. Where a story criticises how an organization responded, we usually describe it in general terms rather than naming it.

What we may decline

We may decline a submission that is spam or promotional, targets or harasses a named person or business, or that we cannot safely anonymize.

After publication

Because we deliberately do not collect accounts or identifiers, we usually cannot verify who submitted a given story later on. If you want something changed or removed, contact us at hello@shieldmate.io and we will do what we reasonably can. Our full terms are on the Terms page, and what we collect is set out in our Privacy policy.