Daisy may seem like a scammer’s dream, willing to chat on the phone and hand over her bank details.
But the grandma is not what she seems, as her sole purpose and reason for being is to waste criminals’ time and make their lives more difficult.
She loves talking to crooks about knitting and her family, and can keep them on the line for as long as 40 minutes at a time.
And she never gets tired or has to go out to buy more Werther’s Original, because she doesn’t really exist.
She is a lifelike AI character designed by O2 to scam the scammers, and has been spending the last few weeks doing just that.
Trained with the help of Youtube scambaiter Jim Browning, Daisy can interact with scammers in real time without any input from her creators, and it often takes them a long time to realise she’s not going to hand over any money.
She combines various AI models which work together to listen and respond to fraudulent calls instantaneously, so she can keep them on the phone with rambling chat, gaining information about their tactics and keeping them occupied so they can’t phone any actual victims.
Daisy was designed to raise awareness of the ‘fraud epidemic’ in the UK.
One in five people (22%) experience a fraud attempt every single week, according to research made as part of Virgin Media O2’s ongoing ‘Swerve the Scammers’ campaign.
Last year alone, the company intercepted and blocked over £250 million in suspected fraudulent transactions — equivalent to stopping one every two minutes.
Influencer and reality TV star, Amy Hart, has worked with Daisy after being targeted herself.
After receiving a call from someone who said they were calling from her bank on the morning of her friend’s wedding, Amy fell victim to a scam which saw more than £5,000 drained from her bank account in a matter of minutes and now campaigns to help others saying it is ‘scary to see the lengths scammers go to steal’.
Murray Mackenzie, director of fraud at Virgin Media O2, said: ‘We’re committed to playing our part in stopping the scammers, investing in everything from firewall technology to block out scam texts to AI-powered spam call detection to keep our customers safe.
‘The newest member of our fraud-prevention team, Daisy, is turning the tables on scammers – outsmarting and outmanoeuvring them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line.
‘But crucially, Daisy is also a reminder that no matter how persuasive someone on the other end of the phone may be, they aren’t always who you think they are. With scammers operating fulltime call centres specifically to target Brits, we’re urging everyone to remain vigilant and help play their part in stopping fraud by forwarding on dodgy calls and texts to 7726 for free.’
O2 advised people to leave scambaiting to the AI experts, as scammers are constantly evolving their methods.
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