Google’s AI overviews can send you straight to scammers. Here’s how to stay safe
Google’s AI overviews have come a long way since its debut when the AI tool had suggested users to eat rocks and add glue in pizza. Since then, the feature has become a mainstay on Google Search and the company wowed by its success, Google has also accompanied it with an AI mode on Search.
However, the feature still remains far from reliable as a recent report by Digital Trends found out. When users relied on Google’s AI overviews to get the official customer care number of a company, they were instead directed towards the number of scammers.
“I’m sharing this as a public service announcement. With AI-generated results and spoofed numbers, the game has changed,” Alex Rivlin, owner of the company, said in a Facebook post. He added that he managed to escape at the last moment, but not before he had already handed over his credit card details to the bad actor.
A businness owner named Alex Rivlin shared his experience with AI overviews in a post on Facebook, stating, “I pride myself on being cautious. 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”
Rivlin noted that while looking for the cusotmer service number of Royal Caribbean on Google, he was given a number that wasn’t real and was instead run by a scammer. While Rivlin managed to escape the scam at the last moment, he had already shared his credit card details to the bad actor by then.
This isn’t a one off case by any chance, though, a few months a Reddit user Stimy3901 shared on the platform that while trying to Google “how to fix a misspelled name on Southwest”, they were given a fake number of the airlines by AI overviews, and trying to contact the number would result in scammers asking for hundreds of dollards to the change the name.
Another Reddit user, ScotiaMinotia, shared in a post how searching for British Airlines customer led them to a scam number. The user did not, however, that the overview has been fixed since then.
