A new AI-powered tool that lets online shoppers \u201cbe their own detective\u201d and spot the warning signs of scams has won praise from the UK\u2019s fraud minister.<\/p>\n
Scam Intelligence lets customers of the digital bank Starling upload images of items and ads on online marketplaces such as Facebook<\/a> Marketplace, eBay, Vinted and Etsy, which it analyses for signs of fraud before serving up personalised advice \u201cin seconds\u201d.<\/p>\n Lord Hanson, the UK\u2019s minister for fraud, told the Guardian that the \u201cUK-first\u201d tool launched by the bank was \u201ca brilliant example of how industry can deploy AI to help us stay one step ahead of fraudsters\u201d.<\/p>\n Scam Intelligence was built using Gemini, Google\u2019s AI chatbot, in collaboration with Google<\/a> Cloud, and was due to be unveiled at a fintech event in Las Vegas on Monday.<\/p>\n During testing it increased the rate at which customers cancelled payments by 300% \u2013 suggesting it has encouraged customers to pause and reflect before making a purchase.<\/p>\n The launch comes days after official figures<\/a> revealed that the amounts of money lost to purchase scams have hit their highest level since the banking body UK Finance started collecting data in 2020.<\/p>\n With these scams, the victim pays in advance for goods or services \u2013 ranging from concert tickets and cars to mobile phones and holidays \u2013 that either do not exist or never arrive. This type of fraud usually involves the victim using an online platform such as an auction website or responding to a social media advert, said UK Finance.<\/p>\n Using Scam Intelligence, people can upload listings and messages from sellers on online marketplaces as well as images of items for sale. The tool can also analyse screenshots of texts and messages from potential scammers that are asking customers to transfer money.<\/p>\n If someone is trying to buy a bike on Facebook Marketplace, the tool might inform them that \u201cwe found some risks\u201d \u2013 which might be that the price looks too good to be true, the photos are \u201cgeneric or low-quality\u201d, which means they could be stolen or fake, or the bank account details do not match the seller\u2019s details. If a customer is trying to buy a guitar on eBay<\/a>, it might flag the seller\u2019s refusal to use eBay\u2019s secure payment features. Similarly, if customers receive requests to transfer money before seeing an item in person, the tool could detect \u201cpressure and urgency tactics\u201d.<\/p>\n Armed with this intelligence, customers can then decide whether to continue with the purchase or not.<\/p>\n Harriet Rees, the chief information officer at Starling, said its new tool would help people \u201cto spot the signs of scams themselves\u201d and \u201cbe their own detective and investigator\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The bank indicated it believed the tool would be able to spot 90% of the \u201cscam indicators\u201d in an image.<\/p>\n It said that during testing, customers had tended to use it most for lower-value online marketplace items such as event tickets and trainers.<\/p>\n Starling said this was the first time a UK bank had offered an AI-powered scam detection tool in its app.<\/p>\n Customers have to opt in to take advantage of Scam Intelligence, and use of the tool is not mandatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new AI-powered tool that lets online shoppers \u201cbe their own detective\u201d and spot the warning signs of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-107214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}