With one in five Brits (22%) experiencing a fraud attempt every single week, telecommunications company O2 and VCCP London’s AI creative agency faith have launched what’s billed as a first-of-its-kind campaign to fight back against scammers.
At the heart of the campaign is Daisy, a lifelike, state-of-the-art, Conversational AI character designed to speak with scammers and keep them on the phone for as long as possible so they have less time to try and scam real people.
The newest member of O2’s fraud prevention team, Daisy was created using a range of cutting-edge AI technology and is indistinguishable from a real person. Based on a real-life relative of a VCCP employee to ensure total believability, Daisy was built to play on scammers’ own stereotypical views that older people are easier targets for scams. While anyone can be a victim of a scam, criminal fraud gangs often target the elderly, so by leaning into scammers’ own biases, Daisy became the perfect scambaiter.
Phoney fraudsters–including many posing as some of the UK’s most trusted businesses–thought they’d got their hands on an easy target, but Daisy has been beating them at their own horrible game, answering scam calls and wasting scammers calls as part of an awareness campaign which exposes fraudsters tricks and tactics and offers top tips on how to avoid scammers.
Daisy is able to interact in real-time ensuring no suspicions are raised on the other end of the line, and has worked 24/7, and over the course of many hours of scam calls she’s told meandering stories of her family, talked at length about her passion for knitting and provided false personal information including made-up bank details.
O2 and faith worked with leading U.K. scambaiter Jim Browning to ensure Daisy was armed with the best information and tactics that kept some phone scammers on the line for more than forty minutes – having followed Jim’s expert advice on how to attract dodgy calls.
This campaign film features Love Islander Amy Hart, who in real life fell victim to a scam herself.
