Google’s AI pointed him to a customer service number. It was a scam.
WASHINGTON POST
Alex Rivlin was tackling a last-minute task for his European vacation. That’s how he got snagged in an artificial intelligence-enabled 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.
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.
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