Is Google's AI Overview scamming you?
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What happens when you Google an airline's phone number?
Your flight got canceled. You're standing in the terminal stressed and you Google the airline's phone number. There it is right at the top of the screen. You call it and you just handed your credit card to some scammer. Here's what's happening. Google's AI overviews, those summaries at the top of the search results, are pulling in fake phone numbers planted by hackers. They look official. They show up first. So you trust them. Someone answers pretending to be your airline, bank, or insurance company. They sound legit. Then they ask to verify your card number or your social security number.
How are scammers using Google's AI overviews?
And like that, your money or your identity is gone. The fix is simple. Never call a number from an AI search result. go directly to the company's website. Type it in yourself. Find their Contact Us page. That one extra step could save you thousands. Tomorrow, you're using AI all wrong. I'll set you straight with my free newsletter. Sign up at GetKim.com. Next up, a call from my weekend show, The Kim Commando Show. Enjoy. John in Syracuse, New York. You're next. Hi there, John. Hi, Kim. How are you doing? Wonderful. Wow.
Thank you. I'm actually talking to you on the phone. Wow.
What steps can you take to avoid phone scams?
Yes. It's wonderful.
Don't try and steal her voice. Somebody already has. It's all right.
Why should you verify contact numbers directly from company websites?
So what's happening?
Well, what happened is, uh, I wanted to check a person's identity, you know, that you really have any business like they claimed it does. So I went to this, uh, website called information.com. Well, this junk in there, they, okay, we're doing this criminal records, blah, blah, blah. So it takes about 10, five minutes. Then at the end it says, well, you gotta pay. So what do we free? The advertising is free. Yeah.
Then they, then they want some money at the end. So who were you looking up and why?
Well, a friend of mine that I have from there, they're claiming they have all these businesses and stuff like that. I want to see if it's really true or not. But the claim was my bank declined the transaction, and when I went to the It was actually $29.95. So I think the bank declined it.
Okay, so wait, wait, wait. It was advertised on the website as $0.99, but when you click buy, they charge you $30?
Well, first they claim it was free, okay? And then when you go to the last to get the report... Is it $0.99? Do you have five minutes to get this for $0.99?
Yeah, that's a big scam, John. That's just a big scam.
Right. Good for your bank to block the charge.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I told the bank that. Yeah, they blocked it. But is there anything?
sites that can go on that are really genuine to look up to that person where you know whether they have businesses or who they are well you know you can always do a state business search and that that's where i would start and that's free you go to the secretary of state business lookup page
Secretary of State.
Secretary of State. Business Lookup. That's what it's called. So you're just going to search New York business entity search. And then if it's a legitimate business, it's going to be registered in that state. And it's going to tell you who the secretary is and where their place of business is and how many employees, maybe even some type of revenues. You can also look at county property records. Most of those are online where you can type in somebody's last name. And then you can see what type of property that they do have. You can put the person's name in quotes and the state in order to see if there's anything that might pop up there. Also look at court records, Freedom of Information Acts, USPS will do address verification.
But yeah, I mean, I always, always, always search anybody that I'm doing any type of business deal. If they have a PO box, that's always a big red flag to me. Really? Yeah. Why do you have one? Yeah, of course I do. Big red flag. Just saying. No, because I mean, I want to see their address or if they have a burner or VOIP number or a Google voice number.
But they're trying to protect themselves. I mean, we talked about earlier in the show that you went out and saw Nancy Guthrie's entire life online.
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