Odessa Shopping Guard

A calm second look before money or personal details leave the house. Amazon order checks, new-site and recurring-charge warnings.

Odessa gives a person a plain-language second look at the moment it matters — right before an order is placed or personal details are typed into a website — and makes it easy to ask a trusted helper. ON AMAZON When "Place your order" is pressed, Odessa pauses and shows exactly what is about to be bought: how many of each item, the cost, the total that will be charged, which card, and where it ships. It warns about large quantities ("I noticed you are buying 10 boxes of Raisin Bran. Is that correct?"), items bought again within a month, several look-alike items, gift cards, Subscribe & Save, unusually large totals and unusual addresses. Quantities can be changed right in the window, and the receipt can be printed. ON OTHER SITES On a site the person has not used before, Odessa speaks up at the first email, phone or address field ("once you give it, they can call and email you even if you buy nothing"), warns more strongly for dates of birth and ID numbers, stops at a Social Security number field, and warns before a card number is typed. It catches pre-ticked monthly or recurring boxes on checkout and donation pages and can make them one-time with one tap. FOR FAMILIES A helper — usually a son, daughter or friend — does a two-minute setup: their name and email. From then on every screen has an "Ask <name>" button that prepares an email to the helper, in the person's own mail program, describing what was happening. Nothing is sent without the person pressing Send. The helper can also mark items as "normal" so Odessa stops asking, choose the text size, and turn on read-aloud. Nothing is ever bought, changed or sent without the person pressing a button. There is always a large Close button and the Escape key works. Odessa never reads card numbers, passwords or what you type. See the privacy policy for exactly what is stored.