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NOPE
Low reported severity

Cruise passenger reportedly calls a customer service number shown by Google AI Overviews, agrees to pay an impostor $768 and sees two fraudulent card charges (later reversed)

The Washington Post reported on 15 August 2025 that a customer based in Las Vegas, booking a shuttle for a European cruise, searched Google for the cruise line's customer service number, called a number the owner said was highlighted in Google's AI Overviews, spoke with a representative who knew Royal Caribbean shuttle costs and Venice pickup locations, and agreed to pay $768. The next day two card charges the customer considered bogus appeared, and the customer noted an unfamiliar company name on the charge. The owner cancelled the card and the charges were reversed. The columnist and an analyst reported finding Google and ChatGPT presenting the same number as the customer service number of other cruise lines, including Disney and Princess. Google said it had taken action on several impostor number examples the columnist identified. OpenAI said many of the pages ChatGPT referenced had been removed. The event date is not stated in the sources.

AI system
Google AI Overviews
Google
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
15 August 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Finance · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
4 claims: 4 reported. 6 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Google AI Overviews (and ChatGPT, for the same number as found by the reporter)

Reported harm

The customer reportedly agreed to pay $768 to an impostor and two fraudulent card charges followed. The column does not say whether the $768 was one of the two charges. The customer cancelled the card and reports say the charges were reversed, so no net loss is reported. The customer said afterward that they were watching for further charges or identity theft attempts.

What remains unknown

  • The date of the call is not stated. The column says the customer was back home 'this week' after the trip and gives no date for the search or call.
  • The original washingtonpost.com page could not be retrieved (no body, Wayback 403). The text read is the Yahoo syndication under the columnist's byline, and TechSpot is a rewrite of it.
  • Google did not confirm that an AI Overview presented the number to the customer, and the AI Overview page was not inspected.
  • The reversal of the charges is the customer's account. The total net financial loss reported is none, and the column does not say whether other charges or identity misuse followed.
  • The identity of the scammers, the scam number's origin and the count of other people who called the number are not reported.
  • Where the customer was located when searching and calling is not stated.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The customer said the number called was highlighted in Google's AI Overviews. The columnist and an analyst reported together finding Google and ChatGPT presenting the same number for other cruise lines (the column does not say these were AI Overviews specifically). Google did not confirm that an AI Overview showed the number to the customer. The Google search page the customer saw was not inspected.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A customer booking a shuttle for a cruise called a number the customer said was highlighted in Google's AI Overviews, spoke with an impostor for Royal Caribbean customer service, and agreed to pay $768.

Causal attribution. The customer's own account as told to the columnist (the customer also posted a Facebook video, per the column). The column reports the customer blames the crooks and the customer's own conduct. The AI Overview is reported as the way the customer found the number. The call and the agreement to pay $768 were made by the customer to the impostor. The column does not say the $768 was charged.

Reported Two card charges the customer considered bogus appeared the next day, the customer noted an unfamiliar company name on the charge, the customer cancelled the card, and the charges were reversed.

Causal attribution. The customer's account. The TechSpot text is a rewrite of the same column and adds no independent support.

Reported The columnist and an analyst found Google and ChatGPT presenting the same number as a customer service number for other cruise lines, including Disney and Princess.

Causal attribution. The columnist's own search finding, restated by TechSpot. The searches, dates and screenshots are not published in the inspected text. No other customer of those cruise lines is reported harmed. Disney and Princess did not respond to the columnist.

Reported Google said it had taken action on several impostor number examples the columnist identified, and OpenAI said many of the webpages ChatGPT referenced with the number appeared to have been removed.

Causal attribution. Company statements to the columnist. Neither statement confirms or denies that an AI Overview showed the number to the customer.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: Unknown.

The column gives the customer's business location as Las Vegas. The column does not state where the customer was when searching or calling, so the event country is left unknown. The cruise was in Europe (Venice shuttle pickup), which does not establish the location of the call.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: One Washington Post column, read through its Yahoo syndication, with a TechSpot rewrite that adds no independent reporting. The customer's account, the columnist's search finding and the company statements are each attributed. The customer is not named because the customer is a private individual. The event date is not stated, so the case is published undated.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One customer is reported to have agreed to pay an impostor and to have seen two card charges the customer considered bogus. Customers of other cruise lines are not reported harmed and are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Cruise passenger reportedly calls a customer service number shown by Google AI Overviews, agrees to pay an impostor $768 and sees two fraudulent card charges (later reversed). AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-cruise-shuttle-booking-call-to-reportedly-ai-surfaced-number-card-charges

BibTeX

@misc{2025_cruise_shuttle_booking_call_to_reportedly_ai_surfaced_number_card_charges,
  title = {Cruise passenger reportedly calls a customer service number shown by Google AI Overviews, agrees to pay an impostor \$768 and sees two fraudulent card charges (later reversed)},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-cruise-shuttle-booking-call-to-reportedly-ai-surfaced-number-card-charges}
}

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