My MBA Thesis, written with input from the Competition Bureau of Canada, addressed marketing fraud in all its forms, but that was written in 2011 – before the dawn of Artificial Intelligence. Things looked bad then, but let me tell you, we’re now entering a brave new world of AI Marketing Scams.

Next-level Marketing Email Scam

I got a good eye-opener recently. In an email solicitation, an AI marketing scammer presented an invoice to our Accounts Payable, with what appeared to be a chain of email correspondence with me, personally verifying that I had ordered the service.

In this correspondence over several chained-together emails, I appeared to have ordered their services, apologized for delaying the payment, and promised payment was forthcoming.

The writing was quite eloquent, and believable, so the typical typos that allow spam to be easily recognized weren’t obvious. 

Fortunately, they used an invoice amount that was quite large (north of 50,000), otherwise it might have slipped through.

In fact, I have noticed lately that spam emails are more smoothly written and convincing. For example, “Oh, we see you offer (whatever comment the AI grabs off a website), or that “you went to (school)…and so did we… or something.”

After all, AI marketing scams easily pull data off your website and/or social media profiles, and use the data to draw a connection that seems very legitimate, and almost human.

How AI Marketing Scams Trick Businesses

I was also disturbed recently to see marketing firms using email solicitations that a) try to sell our company their marketing services (since marketing is what we do here, eye roll) and/or b) promise that they can get grants to cover all the costs of their services. 

The first is just ridiculous, shot-gunning marketing to everyone, including competitors (they are probably not very good at the AI yet). The second is a more spurious bait-and-switch, probably generated by AI to certain classes of businesses. A business owner I know checked into the grant scam, and found out that the grant no longer existed.

The problem is, today’s marketers are tempted to use AI to do everything: generate solicitations, write ads, do creative, make proposals, market research, generate content, and even code websites or apps. 

Right. Until one day, clients wake up and realize, “If AI is doing it all, why don’t we just get the AI and do it ourselves?” In other words, why hire marketers using AI to do everything? This could be a death knell for those marketing agencies out there.

But I’m writing not to warn questionable marketing agencies.

I want to warn everyone else: AI can use your online profile to haunt you, and hurt you. And these scams can look every bit as legitimate as the real thing – beautifully written messages, accurate data, and even be well-timed. After all, they know when you’ve been searching for certain products and services, and they’ll send the emails when they know the iron is hot.

Marketing Scamming Employees May Not Even Know

When researching my thesis, I learned that many of the employees (telemarketers, etc) may not even know that their employer is a sham. Busts have been made in Canadian cities that put hundreds of people out of work.

So of course the telemarketers sounded keen and innocent. Maybe they were. So of course, you can’t be expected to spot the scammers, if even they themselves are in the dark.

Handling Phone Solicitations – Are they Scams?

As for phone solicitations, I have a line I say to all telemarketers now – even if they are charities to whom I’ve donated before. 

It goes, “I have no way of verifying who you are by telephone, so I can’t give you any of my personal data, or offer anything.” Some of them will then give you their charitable registration number, but then you have to say, “Sorry, that’s publicly available online, so I can’t use that either. You could be anybody.”

It’s almost gotten to the point of making people not pick up their telephones. If companies like Telus and Bell knew phones weren’t being answered, they might weed out some of the scammers. If people cancelled Landlines, live phone service, even mobile, might not be far behind.

Assume AI Until Proven Human

My message to businesses is: Assume solicitation is a marketing scam, at least to start.

Don’t pay a bill for any company you don’t recognize. If you have staff that pays your bills for you (accounts payable staff) give them a complete, current list of all vendors.

Meanwhile, if you want to do business with someone, try making them come to see you in person, or at least on Zoom. 

Hopefully you can avoid expensive mistakes that look just like the real thing. Sadly, it’s a “Guilty until proven innocent” world that AI has brought us into.

Or, for that matter, “AI until proven Human.” There’s always a chance that even the humans are up to no good, but at least they’re less likely to do it when you’ve seen their faces.

If you’d like to learn more, contact us today.