Scammers have infiltrated the Google search engine and are offering users fraudulent bank operator numbers.

How Scammers Use New “AI Reviews” from Google
With the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence, Google's main service is changing its output format: instead of familiar links to websites, an “AI Review” now appears – a condensed piece prepared by an automated system.

Unfortunately, these reviews sometimes contain incorrect data, and it has become known that even fraudulent phone numbers are included.

What Exactly Is Happening
1. A user enters a query such as “support number for X-company” into Google.

2. Instead of a list of links, the user sees an AI Review with one suggested phone number.

3. Calling this number leads not to a company employee but to a scammer who tries to extract payment details or other confidential information.

This scheme is already known, but it now looks more credible because the “AI Review” is presented as an authoritative source.

How Fake Numbers Appear
* The exact reasons have not yet been established.

* One hypothesis is that scammers post inaccurate contacts on obscure web pages next to major brand names. Google’s bot collects this data without proper verification and includes it in reviews.

What Google Is Doing
Google states that its spam protection effectively blocks most scam schemes in AI Reviews.

However, this is not an absolute barrier: attackers can embed a malicious query directly into the text of the email, and the AI model may treat it as reliable information.

How to Protect Yourself
1. Do not rely entirely on the AI Review – it may contain outdated or questionable data.

2. Verify the phone number directly on the company’s official website (plus or minus one click).

3. Whenever exchanging confidential information, always cross‑check contact details through a standard Google search.

4. If you are uncertain, disable AI Reviews or use alternative search services.

Conclusion
AI Reviews do simplify information retrieval, but in some cases it is better to revert to traditional methods of verifying contacts. This helps avoid scammers’ traps and protect your data.