Netsafe launches email chatbot to tackle scammers, aim to lower scam victim numbers

Thursday, 9 November 2017

Re:scam works by emailing back-and-forth scammers until they give up.

Scammers could soon get a taste of their own medicine, from a new chatbot designed to waste their time, diverting attention from potential victims.

Re:scam, developed by Netsafe, engages with scammers over email, asking them a never-ending series of questions. It imitates real human tendencies, complete with humour and grammatical errors.

The aim is to turn the table on scammers by wasting their time, and ultimately damage their profits. Re:scam will continue the conversation indefinitely, or until the scammer stops replying. The would-be victim's email address is not used.

Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said the chatbot was developed to lower the number of people falling victim to scammers.

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'When it comes to scams, what we see is lots of people who have lost money and no possible way of recovering those losses and the reality is that after the fact it's very difficult to make any difference against scams,' he said.

'So, a tool like this is designed to disrupt them and to keep them busy and to reduce their effectiveness, and hopefully start to provide some sort of solution before the fact, rather than after the fact.'

The chatbot was custom-built over the past year, and more than 1400 tests cases were put through it prior to its official launch on Tuesday.

Since then, thousands of people had sent scam emails to Re:scam, Cocker said.

'If you think of the average New Zealand internet user, they are receiving these emails today and they are thinking is that legit or is that a scam? Well, for the first time, there are scammers sitting around the world getting emails thinking is that legit or is that a scam?

'It's a bit of what goes around, comes around.'

Scams were a major problem for countries all around the world, including New Zealand. Cybercrime is estimated to cost New Zealand $250 million each year, of which $12m was reported losses to scammers, Cocker said.

'So that's the starting point, and we just want to drive that number down.

'Re:scam won't drive that number down massively, but … if we do disrupt particular scam groups that are targeting New Zealand then we might be able to get some improvements in those losses.'

If you think you've received a scam email, forward it to me@rescam.org.