Six major banks, including BofA and Capital One, warn that increased autonomy for agentic commerce chatbots could lead to more scams, fraud, and disputes
Agentic commerce could increase the amount of scams, fraud and disputes, the banks warn in a new report.
Context & Ripple Effects
The risk case for autonomous purchasing builds on earlier concerns that conversational systems can earn trust they do not merit, creating scope for fraud and mistaken expertise. By September 2025, shopping agents were already pushing sellers and brands to adapt how they surface offers in AI-mediated shopping flows.
The banks’ warning brings payment authorization and dispute handling into that seller-side shift: once a chatbot acts with greater autonomy, a transaction can be challenged not only as fraudulent but over whether the customer meaningfully authorized the agent’s choice.
First-order effects
- Bank of America, Capital One and the other banks must treat agent-initiated payments as a distinct fraud and dispute-risk category rather than as ordinary cardholder checkout activity.
- Consumers and merchants using autonomous shopping chatbots face more contested transactions when an agent is manipulated, makes an unintended purchase, or acts beyond a user’s instruction.
Second-order effects
- Commerce platforms and chatbot providers face pressure from banks and merchants to make user permissions, transaction records, and escalation paths legible enough to resolve disputes.
- Sellers’ efforts to optimize for AI shopping agents, already visible in brands adapting their online sales tactics, become constrained by the payment controls required to distinguish legitimate delegated purchases from abuse.
Third-order effects
- If agent-mediated checkout expands, payment networks and issuers will need authorization models that separate a customer’s standing permission from an agent’s individual purchase decision.
- The larger market may divide between commerce agents that can demonstrate clear consent and recourse and those whose autonomy creates unacceptable chargeback and fraud exposure.
The trend: Agentic commerce is moving from product discovery toward delegated payment, making consent, fraud detection, and dispute recourse core infrastructure rather than checkout afterthoughts.