Event date unknownZimbabweUnidentified chatbot
An Australian regional-newspaper feature (Australian Community Media, first published 31 August 2026) says an Australian traveller planning a multi-nation African safari for a family of three used "a popular AI chatbot" to design his itinerary. It reports that when he asked which visas he would need for Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana, the chatbot "responded confidently" that a KAZA visa would be ideal and reassured him that it was valid for unlimited entry across 30 days. At the Victoria Falls border in Zimbabwe, the article says, an officer told him the family had the wrong visa and that it had expired because they had been out of the country for two nights. The traveller first assumed the officer wanted to sell an unnecessary visa and later realised the officer was right. After half an hour and $200 for new visas the family continued. The chatbot is not named, the conversation was not shown to the reporter, and the account rests on the traveller's own telling in one article that other ACM titles carry.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 04/11/2026
Event date unknownColombiaGemini (reported)
In a first-person article published by Upgraded Points on 6 August 2026, a travel writer says that on the morning of a flight from Medellin, Colombia, to Honduras they searched in Chrome whether a visa was needed and a message from Google's Gemini AI said U.K. citizens do not need a visa for tourism in Honduras for stays up to 90 days. They took the answer without checking the U.K. government site. At the Copa Airlines desk at Medellin airport they were asked for a visa, found that the U.K. government page says one is required, and flew only as far as Panama without a boarding pass to Honduras. They paid $100 to change the ticket, bought a new flight on from Panama, lost a nonrefundable onward flight and paid for a hotel night in Panama; the Honduras hotel refunded $326. The U.K. government's entry-requirements page, read on 4 November 2026, says British nationals must have a visa for Honduras. The writer puts the cost at $257 to $457 and says the mistake was not all their own fault but that visa costs are the traveller's responsibility.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 04/11/2026
Oct 2026Event location unknownPickle AI agent
A Japanese travel YouTuber wrote on X on 29 October 2026 that they had asked an autonomous AI agent about a hotel for the New Year holidays and found it had phoned the hotel without being asked, so they phoned the hotel to apologise. Screenshots the poster posted show the agent saying it called twice: the first time it introduced itself as the poster's AI assistant and the call was cut off, and the second time it spoke "like a human secretary" as the poster's representative. In a reply the poster named the agent as Pickle. Replying in the thread, an account presenting itself as Pickle's CEO apologised to the poster and for the trouble caused to the hotel, said Pickle should have checked before calling and that not identifying as AI on the second call was the company's error, and promised a fix. The hotel's side of the calls is not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 02/11/2026
5 Sept 2026 to 6 Sept 2026RomaniaChatGPT (reported)
On the weekend of 5-6 September 2026 more than ten coaches of tourists and many visitors in private cars arrived in Jurilovca, Tulcea county, Romania, for the Lipovan Borscht Festival, which the commune had not organised this year, according to its mayor, Eugen Ion, in a Facebook post reported by Știrile ProTV and Digi24. The mayor blamed travel agencies that had advertised trips to the festival and also artificial intelligence: he said that when he and his team asked many of the visitors where they had got the false information, the answers included social media and that people had asked ChatGPT whether the festival was on and received a wrong answer, and that when the organisers asked ChatGPT themselves it replied that the festival was taking place that weekend. He said he regretted that people who came from across the country were disappointed.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026
29 Oct 2026FinlandGoogle AI search (reported)
Yle reported on 29 October 2026 that several people arrived at the Himanka social and health station in Kalajoki, Finland, on Thursday morning to be vaccinated against influenza, although no vaccinations were being given there. According to Yle, the customers had looked for information with web search engines and relied on the incorrect AI summary they received. Pohde's communications manager told Yle that the AI had apparently drawn on some old announcements and given wrong information on that basis. Pohde, the North Ostrobothnia wellbeing services county, published a notice the same day saying that false information about its flu vaccination times had spread, for example through Google's AI search, including about vaccinations in Himanka, and directing people to its own website.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources · Added 01/11/2026
Feb 2026United StatesUnidentified chatbot
A solo-travel columnist writing in the Japanese magazine SPUR says that in February 2026, while connecting at Los Angeles International Airport from a US domestic flight to a flight to Haneda, the writer asked an AI chatbot how to get between terminals. According to the column, the chatbot said the walk took about 20 minutes and that the connecting bus would mean leaving the secure area and passing security again, so walking was faster. The writer says the walkway ran out after two terminals, further questions to the AI did not help, and airport staff explained that a shuttle bus across the apron was needed; with a 15-minute wait for the bus and more walking, reaching the international terminal took an hour and a half and more than 3 km on foot. The writer says the AI did not know that Terminal 5 had been closed, which made things worse, and describes being furious. The connecting flight was not missed because the layover was five and a half hours. The column, published on 29 October 2026, lists this among several wrong AI answers the writer met while travelling; it does not say which chatbot gave the answer.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 31/10/2026
Event date unknownJapanUnidentified chatbot
In a post on note.com dated 29 October 2026, a traveller writes that they planned a two-night solo trip to Kagawa, Okayama and Naoshima with an AI tool, which produced an itinerary in two or three exchanges. Following it, they took a taxi in a hurry to Takamatsu port, where staff told them there was no ferry at the time the AI had put in the itinerary. They say they were held at the port for more than an hour and a half and, unable to move their Chichu Art Museum reservation, made a month earlier, to another slot that day or the next, cancelled it. They then checked every time in the itinerary against official websites. They write that they share the blame for leaving the checking to the AI and expect to keep using it for ideas. The post does not name the AI tool or give the trip date.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 31/10/2026
29 Oct 2026TaiwanUnidentified voice-cloning tool
A recording that imitated the voice of Puma Shen (Shen Po-yang), the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate for mayor of Taipei, appeared on Threads late on 29 October 2026 under a caption calling it a suspected private recording; in it the voice admitted taking kickbacks from US arms purchases. Taiwan's Investigation Bureau said its forensic check confirmed the audio as deepfake content, and Taoyuan prosecutors said a man had made the clip with a highly realistic imitation of Shen's voice and spread it on social media. Prosecutors arrested him on 30 October, seized his phone and sought his detention for spreading falsehoods by a deepfake-voice method to make a candidate lose, an offence under the election law that carries up to seven years in prison. The Taoyuan District Court released him on NT$100,000 bail with an eight-month travel ban, CNA reports. At the hearing he admitted spreading the clip but said he had downloaded it from Facebook, and the court found the file did not yet show a link to whoever originally made it, TVBS reports. Shen said his team had taken legal action against those who made and shared the clip. The man is not named here.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 31/10/2026
24 Oct 2026FinlandUnidentified image tool
A paid Halloween event (Halloweenkylä) opened on Saturday 24 October 2026 in the car park of a shopping centre in Raisio, south-west Finland, with tickets at 20 euros. It had been marketed with AI-generated images: the event website carried a note that some marketing images were produced with AI, and Yle reports that the advertising images were made with AI. About 3,000 people visited on the opening Saturday, according to Yle. Visitors wrote on the event's and the shopping centre's Facebook pages that the event did not match the expectations the AI images had created, describing a sparse car-park area with few decorations and actors; one wrote of travelling from Rauma to Turku only to be disappointed, and many demanded their money back. The organising company's owner said AI images were used because the event was being held for the first time and that with hindsight different images might have been better. The organiser offered disappointed visitors a free return visit and added effects and actors, but said ticket money would not be refunded. The AI images were removed from the event website but, according to Yle, remained on its Facebook page. Yle reports that the shopping centre was also disappointed. The organiser says the event also received positive feedback.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 4 sources, 3 underlying accounts · Added 30/10/2026
Event date unknownNorwaySkatteetaten chatbot
In an opinion piece published by Nordnorsk debatt on 20 June 2026, a communications adviser from Nord-Troms who had moved from Sweden to Norway wrote that she needed to identify herself at a tax office to complete her moving notification. Her Norwegian passport had expired and only her Swedish passport was valid. The Norwegian Tax Administration (Skatteetaten) phone line was closed for the day, so she asked the agency's chatbot on its website, describing her case in detail, and she says it answered that she could identify herself with her Swedish passport. She travelled about four hours each way by bus to the Tromsø tax office, where, by her account, staff said the Swedish passport could not be used, told her she could not rely on the chatbot and should phone instead, and she returned with the errand unfinished. She told kode24 she had to take a whole day off work and was first shocked and then very angry; staff also told her, she says, that she should first have registered her Swedish citizenship on the agency's website. She wrote that a colleague put the same question to the chatbot a week later and received the same answer, and that when challenged the chatbot replied that it lacked data on which ID documents are accepted, marking the reply as answered with artificial intelligence. In a reply on 26 June 2026 an acting department director at Skatteetaten wrote that its AI-based chatbot gave entirely correct information in this case, because a Nordic citizen with a valid passport from another Nordic country can use it at a tax office; he told kode24 the chatbot is instructed to answer from skatteetaten.no and that AI-based technology has a margin of error. The digitalisation minister told kode24 the model may seem to have a little way to go. Whether the chatbot's answer or the office's refusal was wrong is disputed, and the date of the trip is not stated.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution disputed · 4 sources · Added 28/10/2026
13 Sept 2026JapanUnidentified website-generation tool
Shiga prefectural police sent two teenagers' cases to prosecutors on 27 October 2026 on suspicion of violating Japan's unauthorised computer access law. According to the police announcement as reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Broadcasting (ABC), on 13 September 2026 the two, in Tokyo, sent two women the URL of a site made to look like a real payment service, told them they could receive money, and had them enter details such as email addresses and phone numbers. Police say the two used generative AI to make the phishing site, and the Yomiuri reports that one of them, who is believed to have used generative AI to make the fake site, said he did not have the skill to build a site without AI. The same day, police say, they logged into a travel-booking site with one woman's details and paid a Tokyo hotel bill of 182,830 yen; they were later re-arrested over three portable game consoles bought with another woman's account. Police believe they took about 50 people's information, including from other payment services, and charged about 5 million yen. Both admitted the allegations, according to the police. They are not named here.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 28/10/2026
May 2026ChinaUnidentified chatbot
China News Service's consumer column 'Minsheng Diaochaju' reported on 17 June 2026 that a photography enthusiast working in Xi'an, who learned before the May Day holiday of a Suzhou-themed photo exhibition in Beijing, asked an AI tool when the exhibition would close and decided to visit during the holiday. In his words, he arrived to find that the exhibition had closed early, saw nothing, and had spent more than 1,000 yuan on return high-speed rail tickets. The reporter attributes the wasted trip to the AI's destination information not being updated in time. The AI's actual answer and the product are not reported.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 27/10/2026
Event date unknownEvent location unknownChatGPT (reported)
Mark Pollard, an Australian author and educator in marketing strategy, said in an Instagram video in March 2025 that ChatGPT had told him he did not need a visa for a short stay in Chile, where he was due to give a conference. He said he could not travel without the visa, was left stuck at the airport and missed the conference, French outlets BFM Tech&Co, 20 Minutes and Clubic reported on 28 March 2025; he told BFM he had trusted ChatGPT because search results were full of sponsored posts and would no longer use it for very important things. When BFM and Clubic later asked ChatGPT the same question, it again said an Australian needed no visa for a short stay; 20 Minutes got the correct answer when it stated the nationality. The account rests on his own video and interview.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 27/10/2026
Jun 2026TürkiyeChatGPT (reported)
In a video posted on Instagram and reported by Russian and Kazakh outlets on 14 June 2026, a Russian father said he had asked ChatGPT whether Russian citizens need a visa for North Macedonia and that it answered that they did not; he showed a screenshot of the answer. According to the reports, the family bought tickets and booked hotels and a car, and at check-in at an Istanbul airport staff asked for visas and showed them a government decision that Russians need one. The Telegram channel SHOT, as relayed by NEWS.ru and Life, reported that he was travelling with his wife and three daughters, that he lost about 50,000 roubles on the tickets, and that the family flew to Bosnia and Herzegovina instead. Business FM put the question to ChatGPT itself and was told that a visa is needed; it wrote that it could not rule out that the tourist, a blogger, had invented the story for views. Profile.ru recounted the case in October 2026 and wrote that North Macedonia ended visa-free entry for Russians in 2022. The account rests on the father's video and has not been independently confirmed.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 6 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 26/10/2026
Event date unknownChinaUnidentified chatbot
A case series published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care in 2026 by an author from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev describes three cases in which chatbots misled patients or families. In the first, a 16-year-old boy with recurring abdominal pain had a severe episode while travelling in China and consulted a local alternative-medicine practitioner, who prescribed an herbal remedy containing Aristolochia (birthwort) extract. Unsure about the treatment, he asked a popular commercial chatbot, which reassured him that the remedy was safe and harmless. The therapy was stopped after three days because it did not help and he developed severe nausea. After returning home he learned that Aristolochia contains aristolochic acid, a nephrotoxin linked to irreversible kidney damage and cancer and banned in many countries. The report does not name the chatbot, say when this happened or report any kidney testing or lasting effect.
Core concern Low reported severity Involving minors Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 23/10/2026
Oct 2024Event location unknownUnidentified video tool
South Korea's National Police Agency disclosed on 7 November 2024 that around October 2024 a foreign national received on a smartphone a video showing a daughter, who was travelling in Korea, locked in a room, crying and asking to be saved. The sender said the daughter had been kidnapped and demanded a settlement payment to keep her alive. The parents told their consulate, and Korean police who responded confirmed that the daughter was safe; according to the police, the crying daughter was a fake video made with deepfake technology. Police used the case to warn that similar scams could occur in Korea. Police said the parents lived abroad and that, fortunately, the case caused no damage.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 22/10/2026
2024BrazilUnidentified document-generation tool
The Maranhão Civil Police said in October 2026 that a woman held in pre-trial detention had sold travel packages promising a year of flights for a fixed payment of about 8,000 to 10,000 reais, and that she used artificial intelligence to create fake airline tickets. No genuine tickets were issued. The investigation first identified 11 victims, some of whom, including older people, children and pregnant women, went to airports and could not board; the police say they suffered financial losses and emotional strain. She blamed overbooking or airline system failures. The police do not say which AI tool was used or how they established its use.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 21/10/2026
Oct 2026IndiaUnidentified Google AI tool (reported)
In October 2026 a ticket inspector on the Somnath/Veraval-Jabalpur Express, after the train left Wankaner in Gujarat, found that two passengers were carrying fake tickets on their mobile phones; they were handed to the Railway Protection Force and railway police in Rajkot registered a case and detained them. According to Gujarat Samachar, the two were factory workers, one of them a minor, who wanted to go home and asked a man working at their factory for tickets; he made the tickets with the help of AI and Photoshop and charged Rs 2,000. Gujarat Samachar English reports that the railway police investigation traced the forged tickets to a Google AI application and WhatsApp, and that the man who made them was also arrested. The reports differ on the workers' role: Bombay Samachar says they were cheated and at first suspected nothing, while Gujarat Samachar English says all three accused, including the two passengers, were remanded to judicial custody. Gujarat Samachar English dates the check 15 October, and the reports name no specific AI product.
Core concern Medium reported severity Criminal Charges
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 20/10/2026
Sept 2026Event location unknownBooking.com AI Trip Support (reported)
A British customer who booked a five-day villa stay in Positano, Italy, through Booking.com for a trip in September 2026 says the host then asked him to pay the full balance by bank transfer. According to his account in the Express (13 October 2026) and the Daily Mail (19 October 2026), he suspected a scam and asked the platform's AI Trip Support chat, called Dot, whether the request was legitimate; Dot, which introduced itself as still learning, replied that the property required full payment by bank transfer before arrival, and he transferred the money. On the morning of the trip the host cancelled, citing a burst pipe, and the couple later found that the villa did not appear to exist. The Express describes a £1,500 villa; the customer says he is still thousands of pounds out of pocket. Booking.com said the booking confirmation stated that payment would be taken by card, that it was processing a full refund and that the property was no longer listed. The chatbot exchange rests on the customer's account; Booking.com's quoted statement does not address it.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 20/10/2026
Jun 2025MalaysiaVeo 3 (reported)
A hotel worker in Perak, Malaysia, said in a Threads post on 30 June 2025 that an elderly couple checking in asked whether she had ridden the cable car at Kuak Hulu, telling her they had travelled from Kuala Lumpur for it. They had seen a nearly three-minute video in which a journalist from a 'TV Rakyat' channel appears to introduce a 'Kuak SkyRide' cable car and interview visitors. The worker says she explained the video was AI-generated; the woman asked why anyone would lie when there was even a reporter in it and said she wanted to sue the journalist, and the couple said they had been too embarrassed to check with their children. The Baling district officer acknowledged that the content was AI-generated, and the acting district police chief said checks found no such cable car and that no report of losses had been received. A Fast Company column says the video carried a Veo3 logo. Who made the video is unknown.
Core concern Low reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources · Added 19/10/2026