Frequently Asked Questions

ChargeGuardian is a browser extension that protects you in three ways:

🛡️ Payment Guard — When you click "pay" on any checkout page, ChargeGuardian shows a confirmation screen with the merchant name, amount, and payment method. It makes you stop and confirm before the charge goes through. No more accidental purchases or wrong-card charges.

🔍 Scam Detection — Automatically scans sites for phishing pages, fake checkout forms, and brand impersonation. Works silently in the background.

⚡ Charge Dispute Manager — Helps you file chargebacks when something goes wrong, with step-by-step guidance and auto-generated dispute letters.

Absolutely not. Everything runs locally in your browser. ChargeGuardian has zero servers, zero data collection, and zero network requests for its core functions. The scam detection analyzes pages on your machine and never sends anything to us or anyone else. We don't even have a database to put your data in.

Free (always): Payment Guard — click interception and confirmation overlay for every checkout. Protects against wrong-card and impulse charges. No cost, no catch.

Pro ($19 one-time): Everything in Free, plus:
• Scam Detection — real-time phishing and fraud alerts on every site
• WhatsApp Web Scanner — detects phishing links and impersonation in chat messages
• Charge Dispute Manager — step-by-step chargeback guidance
• Priority support

One payment. Lifetime access. No subscription.

Currently ChargeGuardian is a desktop browser extension for Chrome and Firefox. Mobile browsers don't support extensions the same way (Safari on iOS is in development). For mobile checkout protection, the best approach is to use Chrome or Firefox on Android — both support extensions.

No. The extension is deliberately minimal — about 200KB total. The checkout interception only activates when you click a payment button. Scam detection runs on page load and finishes in milliseconds. There's no background process polling or constant activity. You won't notice it's there until it saves you.

PayPal, Stripe (credit card forms on thousands of sites), and most major checkout buttons. The extension watches for any "Pay Now," "Confirm Purchase," "Subscribe," "Complete Order," or similar buttons. If the underlying form asks for payment details, ChargeGuardian will catch it.

It works on every website you visit — that's what the "all_urls" permission is for. It doesn't read or modify content on non-checkout pages. It literally can't even see what you're doing until you click a payment button (or land on a page that matches scam patterns).

Fair question. We ask for <all_urls> because checkout forms and scam pages don't follow a single domain pattern. A PayPal checkout could happen on any merchant's site. A fake Amazon login could be hosted anywhere. The extension needs to work everywhere to protect you everywhere.

But here's the important part: the code that runs on those sites is only activated by specific triggers — clicking a payment button or detecting a known scam pattern. It doesn't "watch" everything you do. Free features run locally and send nothing to us. Pro adds two network calls: the license check (your key to our license server) and the domain-age check (the site's hostname to public RDAP registries). You can verify this yourself by looking at the source code or monitoring network requests in DevTools.

Early versions had a bug where clicking "Confirm" on the overlay would re-trigger the overlay itself instead of letting the payment through. This was fixed by adding a guard flag that prevents the interceptor from catching synthetic clicks. If you encounter any issues, just reload the extension from chrome://extensions and you're good to go.

Chiquita is a real Chihuahua — the mascot and inspiration behind ChargeGuardian. She appears in the confirmation overlay to make the experience friendlier and to remind you to double-check before paying. Think of her as a digital guard dog who's always looking out for your wallet. 🐕

Most scam detectors are cloud-based — they send every page you visit to their servers for analysis. That means they know your browsing history, your shopping habits, your email patterns.

ChargeGuardian is the opposite: everything runs locally on your machine. Scam patterns are checked against a built-in list (no network call). The checkout interception is purely DOM-based (no server). Your data never leaves your computer.

Plus, ChargeGuardian is the only tool that combines checkout interception + scam detection in one lightweight extension. Most tools do one or the other.

The extension is currently in pre-release. Once it's live on the Chrome Web Store, you'll be able to install it with one click. Join the waitlist on the homepage to get notified when it launches.

Absolutely. We're actively building and prioritizing features. Reach out at support@chargeguardian.io or use the support page. WhatsApp Web scanning and SMS scam detection are already in development.

Pro is a one-time $9 payment. If you're not satisfied, email us within 30 days and we'll refund it — no questions asked. Free users get all core functionality forever, no payment needed.