What Carmen is.
Carmen works in four places: the web app, the browser, your inbox and your phone.
Ask Carmen
Give Carmen the thing you are not sure about and Carmen tells you how much risk it carries, whether it is what it claims to be, and what to do about it. You can give it a message, an email, a link, a phone number, a person, a company, a screenshot, a file, a photo or a voice clip. Carmen works out what kind of check it needs and runs it. Ask Carmen in the web app does all of this.
The four products
| Where it is | What it does on its own | What you can ask it |
|---|---|---|
| Ask Carmen, the web app. backgrounder.com/app. | Nothing on its own. It checks what you ask. | Everything: any input, any depth, the case, the report, sharing, a person to talk to. |
| Carmen extension, in Chrome. | Checks the address of every page you open. Watches the sites you choose and checks suspicious messages on its own. | Anything you paste, a photo, a file, the page you are on. |
| Carmen Email, in your inbox. | Screens every new email as it lands and emails you when something needs a look. | Nothing to ask; open the case from the alert. |
| Carmen app, on iPhone and Android. | Screens texts from numbers you do not know. Tells you when something needs a look. | Anything you paste or share to it, a screenshot, a link. |
The extension, Carmen Email and the app each work in one place and use the same Carmen. The answer is the same wherever it came from.
What every answer looks like
Every answer has four parts: the risk level (Low, Medium or High), the reasons (what Carmen saw, in plain words, with up to six pieces of evidence), one thing to do, and Check again, which you can use any time. You get the same four parts from the phone, the inbox, the browser or the web app.
What is included and what uses credits
Everything Carmen does on its own (the page check, the inbox, the texts) is included with a paid plan and never counted. Credits are used only when a person asks Carmen for something: Carmen Light is 5, Carmen Basic 25 and Carmen Advanced 250, with the written report included.
When credits are used
Only when a person asks Carmen for something.