Friday, November 15, 2024

Meet the granny who’s catching scammers by talking to them about knitting

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Other conversation topics favoured by Daisy include knitting. She bemuses fraudsters by providing incorrect bank details.

Daisy also repeatedly calls scammers “dear”, resulting in one caller furiously swearing and shouting: “Stop calling me dear.” To which Daisy replies: “Got it, dear.”

In her own words, Daisy says: “While they’re busy talking to me, they can’t be scamming you. And let’s face it dear, I’ve got all the time in the world.”

According to data from regulator Ofcom, almost half (48pc) of British landline users and 39pc of mobile phone customers are receiving scam calls, accounting for tens of millions of bogus calls per year.

Meanwhile, BT says its AI-driven Hiya phone protection service has blocked more than 20m scam and spam calls since it was introduced in May 2024.

Fraud accounts for 40pc of all UK crime, with 3.2m offences taking place each year. This is estimated to cost society around £6.8bn annually.

As part of a new campaign for International Fraud Awareness Week, VMO2 said it had appointed Daisy as “head of scammer relations”.

It said she would keep callers on the phone for as long as possible “with human-like rambling chat to keep them away from real people”.

The technology has been built using AI software similar to ChatGPT, the digital chatbot. It has been fine-tuned by Jim Browning, a popular YouTuber known for his “scambaiting” videos.

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