Sound Alibi — Verify the Story. Not Just the Identity.

Inspiration

Imagine getting an urgent call from your best friend asking you to send $8,500. You trust them, so you open your banking app and prepare the transfer. But what if the person calling isn't actually your friend?

That question inspired Sound Alibi.

While exploring the Sound Credit Union challenge at Husky Hack 2026, we realized that one of the biggest gaps in traditional fraud prevention is authorized scams. Banks are good at verifying who is making a transaction, but what happens when the legitimate account holder is being manipulated into sending money?

We wanted to build something that goes beyond generic fraud warnings and actually helps people question the story behind a suspicious payment.

What It Does

Sound Alibi is an AI-powered scam prevention assistant designed to intervene before money moves.

When a member initiates an unusual transaction, Sound Alibi analyzes permitted banking signals such as transaction amount, payment history, and whether the recipient is new.

If the transaction appears risky, the system introduces an Alibi Mission: a personalized set of steps that helps the member independently verify the reason behind the payment.

For example, if someone claims a family member urgently needs money, Sound Alibi recommends contacting that family member using a previously trusted phone number rather than relying on information provided by the caller.

Members can cancel a suspicious payment, request assistance, or continue through the appropriate banking process.

We also designed an employee-facing fraud operations dashboard to help Sound Credit Union staff review flagged transactions, understand risk signals, manage cases, and assist members. If a scam is discovered after payment, the system supports reporting and recovery workflows.

How We Built It

We developed Sound Alibi as an interactive banking prototype using Claude to assist with implementation and interface development.

Our design centers on three components:

1. Explainable Risk Detection: Evaluates banking activity for unusual transaction patterns, such as large transfers, unfamiliar recipients, and changes in payment behavior.
2. AI-Powered Alibi Missions: Uses the member's voluntarily provided payment purpose to select relevant, independent verification guidance.
3. Member and Employee Workflows: Connects payment intervention, fraud reporting, case review, and recovery support through a unified experience.

We designed the prototype around realistic scam

Built With

• https://github.com/asuzzanne/husky-hack-26