Anyone who has ever dealt with telephone fraud knows that the criminals are sophisticated, trained and difficult to get rid of. The large telecommunications company o2 has now developed a new, creative countermeasure.
The main target group of all types of telephone scammers are older people. It is not for nothing that cases of the so-called “grandchild trick” are becoming known again and again, in which strangers pretend to be the grandchildren of the affected person and ask them for help in a fake emergency situation.
In a current press release, the provider o2 explains that it wants to take advantage of exactly this fact. For this purpose, a special system was developed that works with artificial intelligence (AI). The highlight: The AI simulates an older lady who talks to the fraudsters in your place.
In tests, the computer grandma is said to have kept her counterpart on the line for up to 40 minutes. Not only are stories about knitting and fictional grandchildren told, there are also false bank details. So far, the new scam against telephone fraud has only been confirmed for Great Britain. Affected o2 customers simply need to forward the call to the number “7726”.
Questions about effectiveness
As interesting as the new measure sounds, it raises many questions. The fact remains that the AI keeps callers busy but cannot identify them. After all, according to o2, the AI grandma should help uncover current telephone scams.
It should also be noted that the AI named “Daisy” can only help with telephone fraud. With methods such as SMS or WhatsApp, i.e. requests via text message, the system quickly reaches its limits. Nevertheless, o2's new invention is a bizarre and interesting way to give criminals their own medicine.
Source: o2
By Tim Petzerling
