LOGAN – There are new tools being produced to give scammers a taste of their own medicine.
Scammers are not only a problem in Cache Valley or Utah, but they are a worldwide problem. Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), in collaboration with Feedzai, estimated scammers have taken over $1.03 trillion from people across the world in 2024 alone.
They polled some 58,329 individuals who were scammed across diverse regions and found there was not only a huge economic toll on consumers but, for some, it can be an emotional toll on consumers.
Even with the large numbers, their report offered hope, with signs of increased scam awareness and resistance among consumers.
There are companies who are combatting telemarketers and scammers by designing programs to discourage callers from harassing phone owners.
One British mobile phone company, Virgin Media O2, decided to hit scammers head on by developing an AI bot to thwart them by keeping them on the line for sometimes up to 40 minutes.
The bot is an AI grandmother named dAIsy (Daisy).
Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud at Virgin Media O2, said Daisy was the newest member of their fraud-prevention team.
Daisy is turning the tables on scammers by outsmarting and outmaneuvering them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line he said.
Using a warm and serene voice, dAIsy talks about all kinds of dribble to keep scammers on the line. She might talk about her cat Fluffy, her knitting and her grandchildren sometimes keeping scammers on the phone for an hour or more. She is also programmed to give fake bank accounts, ask questions about how to use the internet and other time wasting scenarios.
Since being deployed in mid-November, Daisy has wasted hundreds of hours of exasperated scammers’ time, with some phone calls lasting over a half hour. And in doing so, she’s brought to light many of the common tactics used to victimize real humans.
There is also Lenny Chatbox, another telephone tool designed to keep scammers and telemarketers busy by simulating an elderly man who is a bit senile and slightly hard of hearing and when he starts to repeat himself, it is easily confused with him just being a forgetful old man.
The phone answering machine allows people to create new profiles with their own or anyone’s voice, maybe they sound sick, or sneezing, or sleepy. Lenny is a land line answering machine intended to take advantage of scammers and telemarketers.