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AI

'AI Granny' Driving Scammers Up the Wall 64

Posted by msmash from the fighting-back dept.
Since November, British telecom O2 has deployed an AI chatbot masquerading as a 78-year-old grandmother to waste scammers' time. The bot, named Daisy, engages fraudsters by discussing knitting patterns, recipes, and asking about tea preferences while feigning computer illiteracy. The Guardian has an update this week: In tests over several weeks, Daisy has kept individual scammers occupied for up to 40 minutes, with one case showing her being passed between four different callers. An excerpt from the story: "When a third scammer tries to get her to download the Google Play Store, she replies: 'Dear, did you say pastry? I'm not really on the right page.' She then complains that her screen has gone blank, saying it has 'gone black like the night sky'."

'AI Granny' Driving Scammers Up the Wall More | Reply

'AI Granny' Driving Scammers Up the Wall

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  • hopefully (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    hopefully Googles 75bil will produce something as "useful" as this

  • Good idea, for the love of God (Score:5, Interesting)

    by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @12:31PM (#65144191)

    I have a good idea that's so obvious once you hear it, and I'm insanely frustrated that no scambaiter is doing it. It's simple:

    1. On a call, clone the scammer (we'll call him Prandeep)'s voice (Kitboga has already done this with AI)
    2. Call the same call center back later, speak to someone else or ideally one level above the fresher
    3. Say Prandeep called you back from a personal number and you're very upset, because he got on your computer and scammed you out of a few thousand dollars. *Play an AI audio recording of you speaking with Prandeep's cloned voice where he successfully scams you!*

    The result of this is the boss/coworkers learn that Prandeep has been scamming *the boss* by doing scamming on the side, which is a massive violation and will hopefully get him beaten to death. Repeat until they can't trust anyone or anything.

    • Re:Good idea, for the love of God (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Thud457 ( 234763 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @12:38PM (#65144209) Homepage Journal
      AI really is this generation's Tower of Babel.

      • AI really is this generation's Tower of Babel.

        I wish I had mod points, but since I don't accept this internet hi-5! I hadn't heard it put that way before and it's brilliant.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ClickOnThis ( 137803 )

      I have zero sympathy for scammers. But what you just described as a counterattack sounds highly illegal.

      Don't try to out-fraud the fraudsters. Think of something else. Something legal.

    • Re:Good idea, for the love of God (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Travco ( 1872216 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @01:30PM (#65144399)
      Have you ever tried calling a call center back? Because they do not accept incoming calls on those numbers. In fact generally those numbers are spoofed The real solution to the whole problem is to require telephone companies to cut off the bastards. They can do it easily, they know where all those calls come from and they can see when they're spoofed numbers. Spoof a number - automatic suspension of service. In fact I'm pretty sure they could fix it so you can't spoof a number.

      • Scam-baiters get in touch with the same call center constantly

      • It seems like an easy solution would be to block incoming calls by country of origin or phone provider. For example, i never want to receive calls from India or weird telecos.

        Als ability to switch to caller pays a few cents to get their call connected. The few people who call me would be willing to pay.

      • They could, but that would require regulation and we all know regulation is hurtful to huge corporations! It hurts them!
        - Telcoms lack any motivation to fix the problem - there's no regulation that says they have to fix it, they're not liable for crimes committed on their systems.
        - They're making massive profits. As long as customers are paying, they don't suspend service. If they were to shut down scammers and spam, they'd be losing an entire class of customers.
        - They lobby politicians so they don't have t

    • Congratulations, you just caused the death of a hapless 3rd world man at the hands of the crime syndicate that was forcing him to participate in these scams. The syndicate will find another slave to take the place of poor Prandeep, his family will lose their breadwinner, while you... must be so proud of yourself.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by irving47 ( 73147 )

        They know full goddamn well they're stealing and scamming people out of their life savings, ideally, if all goes well.

      • Re: Good idea, for the love of God (Score:4)

        by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @03:11PM (#65144751)

        I found the scammer, guys. Scamming us about the meaning of the word "breadwinner." Defending scammers. You're likely from a family that scams. Maybe you have yourself. "Hapless." GTFO.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        Where does that end though? Am I morally obligated to 'fall for' his scam some percentage of the time? I doubt the brutal criminals are all that understanding if a scammer fails to scam.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by eth1 ( 94901 )

        Congratulations, you just caused the death of a hapless 3rd world man at the hands of the crime syndicate that was forcing him to participate in these scams. The syndicate will find another slave to take the place of poor Prandeep, his family will lose their breadwinner, while you... must be so proud of yourself.

        You're correct that taking out the peon's probably won't have much effect, but the same technology could also be used to clone supervisors, and other people further up the food chain if you can get them on the phone. Starting a war amongst the supervisors and bosses would probably be productive.

        In the extreme, if the baiters uncover crooked public figures, they can also forge audio/video of them admitting what they're doing and/or admitting that they're double-crossing the crime syndicates, and send that ar

      • If they're in such a situation to begin with, then their family already lost its breadwinner long before you were ever in the mix.

      • You've only looked at one possible immediate consequence. Suppose you lived in such a place and word had gotten around that the crime syndicate is beating the people they coerce to death after some time. Working for them no longer seems to be a viable option and so you may find yourself acting differently.

        There was recently a similar situation in Mexico where innocent people grew tired of being abused by the cartel. The government was useless so they banded together themselves and fought back. Some of th
    • Wont work - India has an infinite supply of scam wallahs.

    • You are blissfully ignorant (as you should be; no reason to know how scammers operate).

      The sad truth is, it is *not* one lone guy Prandeep scamming on his off time! There are entire large office *buildings*, in countries like Thailand and Burma, with multiple scam companies in each. Many of the scammers are themselves victims of criminals (they were lured into scamming by false job postings from nearby countries like China, and then enslaved when they arrived).

      So no, calling these people back and asking to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      2. Call the same call center back later, speak to someone else or ideally one level above the fresher

      That would be the Karen-bot.

  • Finally a good use for AI (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Horus1664 ( 692411 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @12:34PM (#65144201)
    Now this is the kind of AI use-case we can all get behind...

  • so they aren't detectable.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Up the stakes to someone actually pulling the scammers into a honeypot that'll infect the scammers computers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      How about grandpa's? I do Trump impressions, ranting about sharks, invading countries that don't exist, how I'll buy the caller's call center and make it the most profitable business ever, and then say their mom only got a 1.5 in bed and smelled like rain-soaked 3rd-world rats.

  • So they're deploying this to trick scammers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @12:48PM (#65144235)

    The bot, named Daisy, engages fraudsters by discussing knitting patterns, recipes, and asking about tea preferences while feigning computer illiteracy.

    I'm pretty sure this same software is also being used as the "helpful web assistant" for several businesses I've had to deal with.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      "Helpful web assistants" are only helpful to the company by making people needing support go away.

      I had an issue with my U-Verse TV service. I used AT&T's "helpful" chatbot, and of course it couldn't help, so I asked it for a representative. After a while, I found the right magic words and it connected me to one. Apparently, the only people you can get through the chatbot are billing and other administrative people.

      I found this out because the guy actually admitted he was a billing/CS rep, not a te

      • I found this out because the guy actually admitted he was a billing/CS rep, not a tech support rep, and the only way to get tech support people was over the phone.

        I don't think we have yet to solve the triage problem. I hate chat bots as much as the next person and wish they'd go away, but I also sympathize with companies that need to spend an inordinate amount of money having people take calls that could be solved if the user would just rtfm. I also get that not all documentation is good either. Again, this is a complex set of issues that's difficult to solve purely through technical means.

        I've noticed that a lot of phone menu systems don't support pressing '0' to g

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Nobody can rtfm anymore, because they don't really exist. All that exists could, charitably, be called a cheat sheet.

          This isn't always true for programming languages, but seems to be true for everything else. I guess printing the manuals is too expensive, and they don't want to put the info on the web. (Sometimes they don't care if someone else does.)

      • Just swear at who/whatever answers the support phone. You will then get bumped to a higher level mortal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        so I asked it for a representative. After a while, I found the right magic words and it connected me to one.

        Shibboleet [explainxkcd.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Companies who want to blow off support calls don't need a fancy bot, just a recursive phone-tree. My HMO has had those for decades.

  • This must be Lenny's wife (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This must be Lenny's wife, I hope they capture and post the best conversations.
  • It's all fun and games until one of them gets access to a real bank account.

  • Scammers themselves will be mostly AI soon (Score:3)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @01:51PM (#65144469)

    Once the scam mills fully integrate AI, scams will just be AI talking to AI.

  • I want app app for that (Score:3)

    by Qwertie ( 797303 ) on Wednesday February 05, 2025 @02:06PM (#65144523) Homepage
    When I get an incoming voice call, I want a new "Answer with anti-scam bot" icon. Oh, and and for those who run a business, "answer with AI secretary". (Would Android or iOS allow an app to do this?)

  • Oh, no!
    AI is replacing Pierogi !

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