Podcast / Ready to publish
Help the person.
Not the phishing page.
Three short transcript chapters. Optional browser read-aloud.
No audio starts automatically.
A short interactive mystery · 3 scenes
The Kindness Trap
A missing bag. A printed card. One story too many.
LARK / FIELD NOTES
FICTIONAL CASE · NO TIMER
MARKET STREET / 18:18Your task: listen without prejudging, check what can be checked, then explain the scam. No score. No countdown.
Scene one / Listen
“I only need the fare.”
A woman calling herself Elise approaches Cassie’s parked RV. She says she was mugged nearby. Cassie offers somewhere safe to sit, medical help and a call to the police. Elise declines, but agrees to a recorded interview.
Elise
“My bag’s gone. Phone, wallet, everything. I need £18 for the last coach. The emergency travel scheme will match your help if you use this card. Please, it has to be now.”
Cassie
“We can help you get somewhere safe. First, tell me what happened.”
Choose a question
Cassie’s approachA frightened person can be confused. A gap in a story is a question to check, not a verdict.
Ask the four questions to complete the interview.
FIELD NOTES / VERIFYHow Wrecker checksHe reads the destination encoded on the card without visiting it and compares it with a screenshot Priya saved. Cassie independently calls the real coach operator. The record-shop owner voluntarily shares her screenshot and an earlier recording. Nobody hacks a phone or accesses a bank account.
All names, travel schemes, records and web addresses in this case are fictional. The displayed address is inert; no QR code is provided to scan.
Scene two / Verify
The card is not the charity.
Wrecker rolls back from the record shop with his purchase—and a useful witness. Inspect all three exhibits, then separate what the evidence proves from what it merely suggests.
Inspect the three exhibits.
Wrecker“She names a person at a place at a time. Check whether that person could have been there. Then ask why helping her requires signing into your bank.”
THE RV / LATER THAT EVENINGKeep the kindness.
Change the route.
What the game does not doNo banking details, microphone access or camera access are requested. The optional read-aloud uses your browser’s speech feature; the full text is always available.
Scene three / Put it right
The mugging that wasn’t.
Case resolution
Cassie does not confront Elise with a theory about how victims “should” behave. She puts the two recordings and the operator’s confirmation side by side.
“The booth wasn’t staffed,” Cassie says. “You asked for money before the time you gave me for the mugging. And the page asks for the helper’s banking password.”
Elise stops asking about the coach. “There wasn’t a mugging. My partner built the page. I was supposed to keep people on it until they entered the code.”
Cassie preserves the card and interview, and passes them to the police with the witness’s permission to share the earlier clip. The operator warns its staff. Cassie records a public warning without publishing Elise’s face or the phishing address; the police investigation remains ongoing.
Help the person.
The takeaway: You do not need to decide whether someone deserves help before choosing a safer way to give it.
Real-world safety sources
The mystery is fiction. Its QR-phishing warning and response guidance draw on these Canadian public-safety resources. The fictional case is not a claim about a particular real-world incident.