In a new take on an old scam, AI Overviews are inadvertently coughing up fraudulent phone numbers for companies that appear in search queries.

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Google's AI Overviews are surfacing fraudulent phone numbers planted by scammers on low-profile websites. When users search for a company's contact info, the AI scrapes and presents these fake numbers without verification, connecting callers to con artists who extract sensitive data and payment information. Experts note that LLMs trained on bad data cannot unlearn it, making this an ongoing challenge. Recommendations include avoiding AI Overviews for contact lookups, using Google Maps or the Knowledge Graph instead, and security teams monitoring brand identity while training users to treat AI-surfaced facts as unverified.

AI Overviews Rife With Scam Phone Numbers