A free scam check by text, in the member's own bank, credit union or building society's name. Built by a founder who spent 25 years building fraud technology for the financial industry, and saw scams reach people close to him.
Flggd, the scam intelligence company, has released SafeLine, a scam check by text that banks and credit unions offer to their members and customers in their own name. A member who receives a suspicious message forwards it to their institution's SafeLine number and gets a plain answer back in seconds, before they click or pay. SafeLine is free for members, needs no app, and needs no integration with the institution's systems. Flggd is releasing it ahead of International Fraud Awareness Week, 15 to 21 November 2026.
Institutions choose how members join: in branch, by scanning a QR code, by sending a text, or from an email link. Each reply carries one of four flags, with the reasons named and what to do next: a scam; likely a scam that asks the member to act; likely a scam trying to start a conversation; or appears safe, always with a caveat. SafeLine checks only what a member chooses to forward. It does not read a member's phone or accounts, and it moves no money. The institution's fraud team sees what members forward, so a scam can be spotted while it is still being sent to others in the community.
Flggd was co-founded by Richard Stocks, who spent 25 years building fraud and financial crime technology for banks and has worked with more than 300 of them. He is the son of two London Metropolitan Police officers; in the 1980s his mother, by then back at the Met as a civilian, co-founded its Victim Support Scheme for victims of rape and sexual assault. Scams have also reached people close to him. Board colleagues have lost money to them, and a close friend died by suicide after a long romance scam.
"Every fraud system I worked on watches the money," said Stocks, CEO and co-founder of Flggd. "The manipulation happens long before that, on someone's phone. By the time I knew what was happening to my friend, he was too far in for anything like this to reach him. SafeLine is for the moment before that: the first message, when one honest answer can still change what happens next."
"Scammers are bullies," he said. "They pick on people who are lonely, frightened or trusting, and count on them being too embarrassed to ask. Every member of every bank and credit union should have someone to ask first."
Fraud and member-experience teams can try SafeLine in two minutes at demo.flggd.com/safeline/. The full announcement, brochures for each type of institution, photos and the press contact are at flggd.com/press.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or self harm, help is available:
United States and Canada: call or text 988
United Kingdom and Ireland: Samaritans, 116 123
Australia: Lifeline, 13 11 14
New Zealand: call or text 1737
Flggd exists so that no scam ever wins again. People forward or paste anything that feels off, a text, an email, a message from someone they met online, and Flggd tells them in plain words whether it's a scam and what to do next, free; every check makes the next person's answer better, and the patterns go to the banks, building societies and credit unions that can stop the money. Flggd is a mission-driven public benefit corporation, Flagged PBC, Inc., which means protecting people is written into its charter, not just its marketing.
United States: Credit unions · Community banks · Regional banks · Mutual savings banks · Digital banks
United Kingdom: Credit unions · Building societies · Banks
Australia: Customer-owned banks
Media contact: Richard Stocks, CEO and Co-Founder, Flggd · press@flggd.com · +1 727 207 1201 · flggd.com/press
Social: x.com/flggd_anti_scam · bsky.app/profile/flggd-anti-scam.bsky.social · instagram.com/flagged_anti_scam · facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576810543452 · youtube.com/@Flggd-Anti-Scam · linkedin.com/company/flggd-scam-detection
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