Reddit / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
ZDNET's key takeaways
Scammers are exploiting AI to trick people looking for customer numbers.
Google's AI Overview, AI Mode, and OpenAI's ChatGPT are vulnerable.
Run a regular search, or head to the company's website to find a number.
Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers.
Do you ever use Google's AI-powered search to look for customer service numbers and other contact info? If so, you could be opening your wallet to a scammer.
Several people are revealing how they were scammed while searching for customer service numbers using Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Assuming the phone numbers that appeared in the AI-based results were legitimate, the victims called them and provided payment information to complete a transaction. Instead, the people behind the numbers were scammers trying to steal money from the callers.
Also: How web scraping actually works - and why AI changes everything
"I pride myself on being cautious," Alex Rivlin, owner and CEO of real estate firm Rivlin Group, said in a recent Facebook post, as described by The Washington Post. "I don't click links, I don't give personal info over the phone, and I always verify. But I still got caught in a very sophisticated scam -- and it all started with what looked like a legit phone number for Royal Caribbean I found on Google."
... continue reading