A real estate developer fell victim to a cruise line scam after calling a phone number provided by Google’s AI Overview feature. The scammer, impersonating Royal Caribbean customer service, obtained his credit card details by demonstrating knowledge of shuttle costs and pickup locations in Venice^[1].

The Washington Post found the same fraudulent number appearing across multiple cruise lines including Disney and Carnival’s Princess line. “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,” the Post reports^[1:1].

Google and OpenAI’s ChatGPT have become new vectors for this classic impostor scam. When these AI systems scan the web for information, they may surface fraudulent numbers that scammers have planted across multiple sites^[1:2].

“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,” said the Post’s reporter^[1:3].

Google stated they had “taken action” on several impostor numbers and were working on “broader improvements.” OpenAI noted that many webpages referencing the bogus cruise number were removed, though their systems take time to update^[1:4].