As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
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Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
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Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#12> What he didn't know at the time is there is no phone number for Facebook customer support. Part of the problem here is that Facebook (though in fairness, they are not unique here) has left this traditional path of escalation void, leaving only fake numbers. They don't even have a real number to play a recorded message affirming that there is no ability to call. ETA: For instance, I notice Facebook appears to own th…
> Part of the problem here is that Facebook (though in fairness, they are not unique here) has left this traditional path of escalation void, leaving only fake numbers. They don't even have a real number to play a recorded message affirming that there is no ability to call.
Contrast with Experian, which has a number for consumers to call, but actually has an elaborate infinite loop in its phone tree that prevents you from actually talking to a human (this is by design).
If you're one of their customers (read: a business paying for their service), there's support you can call, but for individuals who have issues with their online Experian account or credit report, you can't, even if you're a paid subscriber to their consumer-oriented credit reporting services.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#13As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
AI has kind of fucked this, but for me (also millenial) I prefer to speak to real people because they are intelligent beings with roughly the same motivations as me and usually want to help out their fellow man.
For example, I can call a local store and ask "hi, do you have this item in stock, can you check on the shelf and set it aside for me please, I will be there in 25 mins".
By contrast stuff like "click and collect" order flows online are super rigid.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#14As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
As someone a little older I remember being able to talk to a person to get issues resolved fairly easily and reliably. The online help is great when the issue at hand is pretty cut and dry. It is nice for a non expert to be able to explain to support on the phone and just have things taken care of.
Support from days gone by was not perfect (hold times, support reading off a script)but it was often a nice option.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#15> What he didn't know at the time is there is no phone number for Facebook customer support. Part of the problem here is that Facebook (though in fairness, they are not unique here) has left this traditional path of escalation void, leaving only fake numbers. They don't even have a real number to play a recorded message affirming that there is no ability to call. ETA: For instance, I notice Facebook appears to own th…
"Pls fix" proposed a market for bribing meta employees to deal with customer support requests.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#16As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
I'm Gen-Z and talking to a human representative of a company makes me much more confident that something will happen as a result of my efforts (though still not certain).
I scheduled an apartment viewing recently, and the only method they provided to do so was chatting with an AI (seriously)... I then tried and failed to find a way to contact a human for confirmation multiple times. Lo and behold nobody at the leasing office when I showed up at the scheduled time. Came back later and eventually found somebody - they had not seen anything I'd done with the bot.
Software for small businesses and local governments is often really bad and I'd much prefer to make sure a person knows what I'm trying to get accomplished.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#17This will get worse when scammers get good at data manipulation for AIs.
After SEO we'll get AIO.
Same with prompt injection by malware.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#18As a millenial, I'm more amazed that someone willingly uses a phone for non-mandatory and not-burningly-urgent phonecalls... why on earth would anyone do that is way beyond me.
I'm Gen-Z and talking to a human representative of a company makes me much more confident that something will happen as a result of my efforts (though still not certain). I scheduled an apartment viewing recently, and the only method they provided to do so was chatting with an AI (seriously)... I then tried and failed to find a way to contact a human for confirmation multiple times. Lo and behold nobody at the leasin…
When I was searching for apartments every complex had the same AI program for scheduling. It was horrible.
I got to talk to one of the leasing managers at one of the viewings and I told him it made them seem cheaper, not more tech-savvy. He told me they had spent millions of dollars on it.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#19I look forward to this never happening again and not becoming a massive problem for the next 10 years.
Not to apologize for the irresponsible deployment of this chatbot but it should be noted that the guy got the number from a Google search (think about the results you'd get for "facebook support number"). It's been a massive problem for at least the last 10 years.
Re: Man scammed after AI told him fake Facebook customer support number was real
#20This one is pretty bad. This guy found a fake Facebook customer support phone number in a Google search, then asked the Meta AI chat in Facebook Messenger if the number he found was a real Facebook help line... and Meta AI said that it was. There's a screenshot of the chat in the article.
This reminds me of that recent issue with a Canadian airline, where (IIRC) a court ruled that their chatbot made a wrong, but binding, commitment to a customer.
I'm curious if a Canadian court would hold Meta liable for the man's losses in this case as well.