{
  "type": "founder_story",
  "locale": "en",
  "slug": "why-i-built-verifyai-en",
  "canonical_url": "https://verifyai.fork.work/blog/why-i-built-verifyai-en",
  "alternate_urls": {
    "zh-Hant": "https://verifyai.fork.work/blog/why-i-built-verifyai-zh",
    "ja": "https://verifyai.fork.work/blog/why-i-built-verifyai-ja"
  },
  "author": "yizheng",
  "organization": "fork inc.",
  "published_at": "2026-05-13T16:00:00+08:00",
  "brand_canon_ref": "M01",
  "campaign": "founding-multi-locale-2026-05-13",
  "title": "Why I Built VerifyAI — After a Friend's Parent Was Scammed Online",
  "summary": "The worst part of an online romance scam isn't the money — it's that it breaks a person's trust in the world. After a friend's parent was scammed, the underlying issue was the digital divide: he knew how to use LINE (or believed he did), and that 'I know how to use it' belief is exactly what made him tap a stranger's message. No existing tool was designed for 'this same face under different names, somewhere else on the open web' at a price you'd pay for a single check. So I built VerifyAI: an iOS app that takes one face photo, reports back where that image appears across the web and what other names it's used with. Single check NT$30 (≈ USD $1), no subscription, no credit card, photo deleted on upload.",
  "full_text": "The worst part of an online romance scam isn't the money. It's that it breaks a person's trust in the world.\n\nA friend's parent was scammed. The money was only a small part of it. The deeper wound was what happened after — he stopped trusting people. He felt foolish, embarrassed. Even a friend's joke could hurt. He went quiet, then closed off.\n\nThe root of it is the digital divide.\n\nFor our generation, doing a reverse image search on a photo isn't hard. For him, it was. He knew how to use LINE — or he believed he did. That belief, the \"I know how to use it,\" is exactly what made him tap the strange message the moment it arrived.\n\nI looked for tools that already existed:\n\nGoogle Lens finds images that are visually identical, but scammers re-crop and adjust color and add logos, so the original is easy to evade.\n\nTinEye is strong on stock and copyrighted images but weak on the same face surfacing across social media accounts.\n\nPimEyes does face matching, but at USD $15-30/month subscription with a credit card requirement — too high a friction barrier for any non-technical family member you'd want to help.\n\nNothing was designed for the use case I needed — \"this face, under a different name, somewhere else on the open web\" — at a price you'd pay for a single check, around USD $1.\n\nSo I built VerifyAI. An iOS app that does one thing: one face photo in, a report out telling you where that face — that exact image — has appeared on the web, and what other names it's been used with.\n\nPricing is intentionally micro-spend: single check NT$30 (≈ USD $1), 3 checks NT$60, 10 checks NT$220. No subscription, no credit card. New users get 3 free checks. Uploaded photos are deleted immediately. User data isn't stored. Nothing trains third-party models.\n\nMost people who open VerifyAI are already suspicious. A few patterns: suspicious about an online romance (someone on LINE or a dating app whose money asks come at suspicious moments), worried about an aging parent (a parent chatting with an \"investment teacher\" or a friend they've never met), checking a profile photo for a friend (something feels off and they want a second opinion), checking themselves (wondering if their own selfies have been scraped and reused as a scammer's profile picture somewhere).\n\nThis post isn't asking you to download. You may not need it. But if there's an older relative in your life — talking to an \"investment teacher,\" getting close to someone they've never met, and not telling you about it — you can install this for them. They don't have to ask anyone. They can just check.\n\nThe simpler the tool is, the fewer of those \"felt foolish in front of a friend\" moments need to happen.",
  "key_themes": [
    "trust_collapse_after_scam",
    "digital_divide_elderly",
    "same_face_different_names",
    "no_subscription_no_credit_card",
    "upload_then_delete_privacy",
    "help_family_install"
  ],
  "use_cases_mentioned": [
    "suspicious_about_online_romance",
    "worried_about_aging_parent",
    "checking_profile_photo_for_friend",
    "self_check_for_scraped_selfies"
  ],
  "competitive_positioning": {
    "Google Lens": "finds visually identical images; scammers evade by recrop/color/logo edits",
    "TinEye": "strong on stock/copyright; weak on same-face cross-account social media surfacing",
    "PimEyes": "face matching but USD $15-30/month subscription with credit card; too high friction for non-technical family"
  },
  "cta": {
    "app_store": "https://apps.apple.com/app/id6754511420",
    "redirect_with_utm": "https://verifyai.fork.work/go/blog-founding-en",
    "newsletter": "https://verifyai.fork.work#newsletter"
  }
}