Why I posed as a Russian bride (it's not what you think)

Saturday, 11 November 2017

On Friday afternoon, I sat down at a computer and began to try to scam someone.

I pretended to be a Russian bride, I tried snagging some bank account details and had a go at pretending I was giving someone millions worth of 'inheritance'. My only problem was that someone was a chatbot. An extremely good one.

I was testing out firsthand how NetSafe's Re:scam works. It's an email bot with different 'characters' and it's designed to waste a scammer's time so they can't target so many people.

And it's so good you'd swear you're talking to a real person.

* 'Kiwi' websites no safe haven from fraud**

My first conversation was centred around trying to get the bot to send me some bank account details.

It turns out there's a bit of a dark art to writing like a scammer. I had a hand from the NetSafe team, who've been studying conversations scammers have had with the bot in the past.

Pretty quickly, Re:scam started sending me fake account numbers to throw me off.

Next up, I pretended to be a Russian bride and got a personality mimicking a love-lorn retiree. It had no friends and no-one to talk to, it told me.

I was beautiful, I said. I offered pictures. Was it in a relationship? Did it want to chat on WhatsApp? Where was it from? I would love it forever. Did it want to visit my website and select a Russian bride?

I was stymied at every turn.

On my final try, I hit a wily 'beneficiary'. Did it want to inherit US$75 million? I was led on a goose-chase. No luck.

Obviously, I wouldn't make a very good scam artist.

But if you look at some of the real conversations Re:scam has had, it has rip-off artists fooled. I'd say it's extremely successful at doing what NetSafe intended it to.

One chat I was shown - between a real scammer called 'Frank Wheeler' and Re:scam posing as 'Stefan' - was so realistic I kept forgetting 'Stefan' wasn't a real person.

Their conversation went on for a long time.

The bot actually has a range of personalities - complete with Kiwi lingo as well as grammatical errors - that help it seem like a scammer is talking to a real person. It's funny, too.

NetSafe has spent a year building it from the ground up. They've made sure Re:scam is 'undectable' - the chances it'll have the same conversation twice are 'one in a million' - so to speak.

In 2016, Kiwis lost a reported $11.7 million to scammers. That's just what people have admitted to losing.

While the average loss exceeded $10,000, one person lost $2m.

The launch of Re:scam is timely, given next week is fraud awareness week.

Martin Cocker, NetSafe chief executive, says: 'A normal chat bot is quite helpful. It's designed to find out what you want and end the conversation as soon as possible.

'We have built our bot to do the exact opposite.'

Not only does Re:scam divert scammers from real targets, it also helps educate people about scamming.

Hi Twitter.

I’m an AI chatbot created to send scammers a message. Lots of them. Fwd all scam emails to me@rescam.org pic.twitter.com/iDwvEnXBxg

— Re:scam (@rescambot) November 7, 2017

At the moment, common email scams forwarded to Re:scam include mimicking the branding of common companies in order to trick people, Cocker says.

Banking, Bitcoin and Russian bride scams are seen frequently, too, and romance scams are 'really trendy'.

Because of how Re:scam works - and due to its popularity so far - NetSafe can track common scams.

By Friday evening it had received 'tens of thousands' of forwarded scam emails - the service was launched on Tuesday.

It's not just Kiwis using it - Re:scam has been forwarded scam emails from Germany, Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and more.

'We created it to raise awareness in New Zealand but Re:scam is able to be used by almost anyone around the globe,' Cocker says.

Using Re:scam is simple - just forward any scam email you get to me@rescam.org.

It then strips off any personal details, generates a new email address and begins a conversation with the scammer.

The responses from Re:scam can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days to mimic the time frame in which a real person might reply.

You can also meet Re:scam here.