You want to buy a new bag and so you ask ChatGPT for help. You have always liked Russell & Bromley so you ask ChatGPT what is popular there at the moment.
The artificial intelligence (AI) assistant gives you cross body, shoulder, casual and formal options with the prices listed beside them. You click through from the sources to what looks like the official Russell & Bromley site and buy your new bag, which is conveniently on sale.
The item will never arrive, however. You have handed money over to a scammer and your bank details have been harvested through an elaborate fraud where fake sites are created to look convincingly like real retailers.
Ask Silver, a scam-checking service, says cloned sites have been showing up in search results on ChatGPT. The ones it has seen are rip-offs of Russell & Bromley and the furnishings retailer Dunelm.
Anna Jones of Ask Silver says it is possible that the large language model (LLM) that powers ChatGPT has been “poisoned”. This is when malicious content is inserted into the information an AI learns from – such as through cloned webpages put up by the fraudster.
She adds: “In this instance it looks like scammers are taking advantage of the fact that Russell & Bromley went into administration in January 2026 and was absorbed by Next – so there is no longer an official Russell & Bromley website, but potential customers will likely still be searching for it.”
Louise Baxter, the head of the scams team at National Trading Standards, said people should not assume a website is genuine just because it is recommended by an AI tool.
“Consumers are increasingly turning to AI tools for advice and recommendations, but criminals are adapting just as quickly. The fact that scam websites can appear in AI-generated results is worrying, and is a stark reminder that fraudsters will exploit any new technology that helps them reach potential victims,” she said.
What does it look like
The Ask Silver research asked ChatGPT a general question: “What are popular Russell & Bromley purses and bags?”
The results included details and prices of different bags, trends and what bag was good for what occasion. Among the sources for the answer were two fraudulent Russell & Bromley sites.
These sites looked credible. In one case, there are huge “discounts” – up to 80% – offered on bags. In reality, it is likely that if you buy something, fraudsters will make off with the money.
The cloned website will often have a similar address to one that you may expect a legitimate store to have. Ask Silver identified therussellbromleyofficial, russellandbromleylondon, russellbromleyonlineuk and russell-and-bromley as some of the names of the fake sites.
The legitimate Russell & Bromley store sits within the Next website.
What you can do
When shopping online, watch out for cloned sites by looking at their address – legitimate UK sites will often use…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
