‘It’s often very grey’: Local start-up using AI to help navigate scams
Posted Oct 21, 2025 10:48:31 AM.
Last Updated Oct 21, 2025 03:39:54 PM.
As the presence of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to create division, including in jobs, technology, and more, one local start-up is hoping to capitalize on the technology by preventing various home service and contractor scams for those who need it.
That service, called Better Bid, is an SMS-based system created to help connect homeowners with reliable contractors.
It’s done through a proprietary AI-based algorithm that, to put it simply, assigns a grade to potential contractors, examining phone and text conversations, as well as comparing them to other home service options.
The service is provided to help residents find trusted sources when sorting through home improvement options and preventing them from falling for contractor scams.
“What we do is, with the use of this proprietary AI, we compare the scams versus the non-scams,” said Alex Kimmich, Founder and CEO of Better Bid. “We use a variety of analytic indicators. Maybe intent is the contractor saying things that seem not 100 per cent truthful, or are they making claims about materials that aren’t true?”
Kimmich said that, so far, his business has helped to prevent tens of thousands of dollars that could have potentially been lost through those possible scams, saying Better Bid maintains a zero per cent scam rate across hundreds of successful jobs.
He stated that, when it comes to scams and potential fraudsters, people can be easily confused when looking for help with their at-home projects. This can often leave them vulnerable to those potential scams.
“It gets a general understanding of how risky the contractor is and, just as in real life, it’s not always a ‘zero or one thing,'” Kimmich stated. “It’s not always that ‘this is a scam contractor’ or ‘this is not a scam contractor.’ It’s often grey, it’s often very, very grey. That’s what our tool does, it helps assign a number to that gray scale.”
Kimmich said that users can text in to Better Bid, which then works to understand the project, find them the best three quotes in their local area, and deliver them, so they don’t have to risk a possible poor choice or bad referral.
According to Scotiabank, approximately 32 per cent of homeowners have admitted to falling victim to home service scams in Ontario, with $22 million lost by Canadians in 2023 to fraudsters.
A majority of those losses came from the pockets of seniors and the country’s elderly population, along with other more vulnerable groups at risk of fraud and identity theft.
“It just made sense. Nobody is doing this right now. This is something that would probably cost a company a lot of money to do, so no company is ever really going to take the time to do it properly,” Kimmich said. “I had the ability to do it, and I thought I might as well. It’ll help people, which is ultimately the goal of the business.”
Kimmich said that he understands a lot of the hesitancy when it comes to AI in people’s everyday lives, but said options like his company, which look to integrate AI usage into modern practices, really outline the direction that many up-and-coming small businesses could be headed towards.
He stated that there are proper ways for AI to be used, having the potential to be a benefit to residents across the region and the country.
