Google's AI pointed him to a customer service number. It was a scam.
Rivlin, who runs a real estate company in Las Vegas, needed to book a shuttle to catch a cruise ship. From his kitchen table, he searched Google for the cruise company's customer service number, chatted with a knowledgeable representative and provided his credit card details.
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Rivlin said that the number he called was highlighted in Google's 'AI Overviews' - AI-generated responses to some web searches. The next day, Rivlin saw fishy credit card charges and realized that he'd been fooled by an impostor for Royal Caribbean customer service.
He'd encountered an apparent AI twist on a classic scam targeting travelers and others searching Google for customer help lines of airlines and other businesses.
I found the same number he called appearing to impersonate other cruise company hotlines and popping up in Google and ChatGPT.
Welcome to the AI scam era. Experts warn that old scammer and spammer tricks that have swamped the web, social media, email and texts are now also manipulating AI information - and Rivlin is among an early wave of victims.
'I'm pretty technologically advanced, and I fell for this,' said the founder of the Rivlin Group at lpt Realty.
I'll walk you through how to guard against experiences like Rivlin's, and what companies such as Google should do to stop crooks from warping AI information.
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How scammers fooled Rivlin and Google
Rivlin told me that the bogus customer service number and the impostor representative were believable.
The rep knew the cost and pickup locations for Royal Caribbean shuttles in Venice. He had persuasive explanations when Rivlin questioned him about paying certain fees and gratuities. The rep offered to waive the shuttle fees and Rivlin agreed to pay $768.
Rivlin said that he was suspicious of oddities, including an unfamiliar company name that came through on the credit card charge.
When two bogus card charges landed the next day, Rivlin knew he'd been tricked. He canceled his credit card and the charges were reversed.
Rivlin mostly blames the crooks and himself for falling for the scam. But I've seen so many versions of similar trickery targeting Google users that I largely blame the company for not doing enough to safeguard its essential gateway to information. So did two experts in Google's inner workings.
Here's how a scam like this typically works: Bad guys write on online review sites, message boards and other websites claiming that a number they control belongs to a company's customer service center.
When you search Google, its technology looks for clues to relevant and credible information, including online advice. If scammer-controlled numbers are repeated as truth often enough online, Google may suggest them to people searching for a business.
Google is a patsy for scammers - and we're the ultimate victims.
Google's AI Overviews and OpenAI's ChatGPT may use similar clues as Google's search engine to spit out information gleaned from the web. That makes them new AI patsies for the old impostor number scams.
'Manipulating these new answer engines using techniques from 30 years ago is like shooting sitting ducks,' said Mike Blumenthal, analyst at Near Media, a consumer search behavior research company. (Blumenthal told me about Rivlin's Facebook video relaying his experience.)
Blumenthal and I found Google and ChatGPT identifying the same number that fooled Rivlin as a customer service number for other cruise lines, including Disney and Carnival's Princess line.
In a statement, a Google spokesman said that AI Overviews and web search results are effective at directing people to official customer service information for common types of searches.
The spokesman said that the company has 'taken action' on several impostor number examples I identified and that Google continues to 'work on broader improvements to address rarer queries like these.'
Royal Caribbean's customer service number is 1-866-562-7625, which the company says it shows on its websites, apps and invoices. Disney and Princess didn't respond to my questions.
OpenAI said that many of the webpages that ChatGPT referenced with the bogus cruise number appear to have been removed, and that it can take time for its information to update 'after abusive content is removed at the source.' (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)
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What you and companies can do to ward off this scam
- Be suspicious of phone numbers in Google results or in chatbots. Rivlin said that he looked for Royal Caribbean's customer service contact number in its app. No luck.
Google or chatbots are natural next spots to look for business numbers, but it's worth being extremely careful of numbers they show. Eyeball associated links in Google or ChatGPT before you call. Read more advice on fake customer service scams.
- Why is Google making it easier for scammers? The company knows the long history of people being fooled by bogus customer service numbers they find in search results.
You'd be safer if Google didn't show AI Overviews - which seem like authoritative 'answers' - for business number searches, said Lily Ray, vice president of search engine optimization strategy and research at the marketing firm Amsive.
'By allowing AI Overviews to appear for business phone number queries, they're opening up a new opportunity for scammers - and one that scammers are clearly already using to their advantage,' Ray said by email.
Ray and Blumenthal say that Google has databases of vetted information, including for businesses, and that the company should ensure search and AI results only grab information from there.
Back home this week after a great trip, Rivlin said that he's watching for more bogus charges or attempted identity theft. And Rivlin wants to spread the word that even being well informed about scams and a believer in AI didn't make him immune to AI-enabled trickery.
'I can't believe that I fell for it,' he said. 'Be careful.'
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