So they can scam you through the Google assistant

Intelligent assistants are being integrated into all kinds of devices in our environment. And in fact they can be useful in many ways. But it has been discovered that they can also get you into trouble. If you ask one of these tools to call a phone number you could end up being scammed And you won't know it until it's too late.

This is how they discovered it in the Better Business Bureau, where they ask their readers to share the scams they have fallen for.Well, one of them has confirmed a scam in which he has fallen by looking for and calling, by means of a voice command to his assistant on duty, the number of airline phone number The problem is, he found a number for a scammer who tried to sell him $400 worth of prepaid cards. Another user, according to the same post, asked Siri to find him a phone number that ended up being that of a scammer posing as the tech support he wanted to contact.

How to scam an intelligent assistant

According to the Better Business Bureau Scams of this type can be programmed The trick is to impersonate an official number of some type of company or support. To do this, you only have to pay in Google and thus appear in the first results of the search engine.

With this, intelligent assistants will take advantage of this resource when asked for the phone number of a certain company or support.They will search for the first result in the search engine and will collect the data to make the call if we ask them to. Something that occurs both in the Google Assistant and in Siri or Alexa. So no, none is free from scam.

Once the phone number is being called the scam has already been carried out. Whether it is a high-rate telephone number or not, the assistant will call to establish a telephone connection. From here it only depends on the type of scam in question. Generally, it is a call in which they pose as the company in question in order to collect sensitive user data Although they can also be sellers trying to defraud with telephone purchases by obtaining the user's bank details.

Here the common sense of the user should save the situation Of course, if we have full confidence in the intelligent assistant, and if nothing tells us Otherwise, it's hard to know if the called phone number is official or not when it appears on Google.

How to avoid these scams

The Better Business Bureau's recommendations to avoid this type of situation include thoroughly reviewing the search for the phone number made by the intelligent assistant. To do this, it is recommended not to search the Internet, but to use the reference of a ticket or the official website.

It is also recommended not to trust advertisements for help or support phone numbers. In the same way, it should be found on the official website or other resources, not on a banner or advertising space on Google.

Finally, it is advisable to avoid giving away sensitive data through telephone calls. If it is a call to a mobile operator, a bank or some other matter where they already have our data, we should not have to provide them again by phoneEven so, credit card payments can always be returned in case of a scam. So it is better to offer this information in case it is strictly necessary.