LLMMedium
Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT Reportedly Cited Fraudulent Cruise Hotline, Allegedly Enabling Successful Scam
- Occurred
- Aug 15, 2025
- Published
- Aug 15, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Google's AI Overviews allegedly surfaced a fraudulent customer service number for Royal Caribbean. Consumer Alex Rivlin reportedly called the number, spoke with an impostor, and provided his credit card, later incurring $768 in fraudulent charges. The same number reportedly appeared in ChatGPT results and was linked to Disney and Princess cruises, purportedly showing how scammers are manipulating AI outputs to amplify longstanding hotline scams.
Developers
- OpenAI
Deployers
- Unknown scammers impersonating Royal Caribbean
- Unknown scammers impersonating Disney Cruise Line
- Unknown scammers impersonating Princess Cruises
- Scammers
Harmed parties
- Alex Rivlin
- Royal Caribbean
- Royal Caribbean customers
- Disney Cruise Line
- Disney Cruise Line customers
- Princess Cruises
- Princess Cruises customers
- General public
Classification
Category confidence: 90%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: AI models generated fraudulent contact info leading to financial loss, but no mass casualty or systemic breach.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8