Scammers in China Are Using AI-Generated Images to Get Refunds

I don’t want to admit it, but I did spend a lot of money online this holiday shopping season. And unsurprisingly, some of those purchases didn’t meet my expectations. A photobook I bought was damaged in transit, so I snapped a few pictures, emailed them to the merchant, and got a refund. Online shopping platforms have long depended on photos submitted by customers to confirm that refund requests are legitimate. But generative AI is now starting to break that system.

A Pinch Too Suspicious

On the Chinese social media app RedNote, WIRED found at least a dozen posts from ecommerce sellers and customer service representatives complaining about allegedly AI-generated refund claims they’ve received. In one case, a customer complained that the bed sheet they purchased was torn to pieces, but the Chinese characters on the shipping label looked like gibberish. In another, the buyer sent a picture ...