Siri, don't call a travel agent smart devices can lead to scam calls, watchdog warns

Pulling up a recipe, playing music or dimming the lights of your room voice-controlled smart devices like Alexa, Google Home and Siri-enabled HomePod have plenty of uses.

But the Better Business Bureau (BBB) has cautioned against blindly relying on these gadgets tomakephone calls.

The auto-dialling feature lets a user instruct the device to search for a business online and dial itsnumber all hands-free and without looking at a screen.

Butaccording to the BBB'sscam alert, instead of calling a legitimate business, the devices have connectedusers with a fraudulent "representative."That's becausefake customer service numbers can becometop results on search engines like Google by paying for advertisements.

One victim used the voice search feature on her home-assistance to call customer service to change her seat on an airline, according to BBB's media release. But the scammer tried to trick her into paying $400 in prepaid gift cards by insisting the airline was running a special promotion.

'They're not a 100 per cent smart'

Scammers posing as real businesses aren't new. Last month, BBB issued a scam alert on'Expedia Imposters' in which fakephone operators scammed people into spending hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards on bogus travel bookings. Customers landed on the fake websitescreated by criminals through search engines like Google.

Karla Davis, community relations manager at BBB, says the latest development isthe first time they've seen a smart gadget lead people to con artists.

"We forget that they are smart, but they're not a 100 per cent smart," says Davis.

"The fact that the device can't distinguish between a phoney number and a legitimate number does put you at risk of calling a scammer by mistake."

The BBB has received 12 reports of similar attempted scamsin North America, but none from Canada.Davis says prevalence of voice-controlled devices and heavy reliance on gadgets means the scam could easily hit closer to home.

Davis says customers should look up information on a company's official website on their own instead of letting a voice-assisted device sift through sponsored advertisements on a search engine.

"While technology does make life easier, there are situations where we could think about going the old fashioned route," says Davis.