Lloyds creates AI tool to identify fraud ‘red flags’ to customers
Online shoppers will be notified of potential scams, asked for additional information before committing
Lloyds Banking Group plans to launch an AI tool in its app to help customers sidestep online shopping scams and avoid risky transactions.
The Scam Check tool, announced this month, will notify a customer when they might be at risk of sending money to a fraudster via online shopping, according to a Lloyds spokesperson.
The AI-driven fraud agent was built in-house by company fraud, technology, data and risk specialists on Lloyds’ AI platform, Envoy, the spokesperson told FinAi News.
When a customer tries to pay someone new for an online purchase, Scam Check will determine if the transaction looks safe or if more information is necessary, according to a June 8 release.
If more information is needed, the tool asks the customer a few basic questions and requests screenshots of the item being bought.
“AI will review the photos specifically to look for markers of common scam tactics and make the customer aware of any red flags,” the spokesperson said. “Our [human] expert fraud colleagues remain in the loop overall [to help] if the customer gets in touch with concerns or if a payment is attempted.”
Red flags Scam Check monitors for include:
- The price being too good to be true;
- The seller’s account is new or has no ratings;
- The seller providing only a vague description of the item;
- The photo appearing to be phony;
- The customer being required to submit a deposit; and
- Urgency or pressure tactics.
The London-based bank did not disclose the cost of developing this tool but said it has invested 100 million pounds ($134.3 million) in new fraud prevention technology since 2023, according to the spokesperson. Lloyds declined to give a timeline for the launch.
About 68% of shopping scam cases reported by Lloyds’ customers began on a Meta platform such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the bank said.
Lloyds prevented more than $1.3 billion of attempted fraud in 2025 and checks an average of 23,551 transactions every minute for unusual activity, as of June 8, according to the release.
“Scams are becoming more convincing, targeted and emotionally manipulative, making them harder to spot and we need to use all the tech and tools we can to fight back,” Lloyds Fraud Prevention Director Liz Ziegler said in the release.
Editor’s note: All amounts have been converted to U.S. dollars.
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