Unscrupulous developers are taking advantage of the growing popularity of AI chatbots to deceive people into paying for something they don’t need. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Sophos found many fake ChatGPT apps both in Google’s and Apple’s app stores, which use dubious methods to push users into subscriptions. In just one month, one such developer made over a million dollars, while some others made $10,000 in the same timeframe.
That’s not to say the apps themselves are malicious or detrimental in any way. They merely claim to offer the functions of a ChatGPT primitive (which is a kind of AI-powered chatbot) and offer a free trial of sorts, be it with much reduced functionalities, too many ads, or a paid subscription. The costs for a premium subscription vary from $10 a month to over $300 a year.
The worst thing is that all of this can be avoided as ChatGPT supports open access for everyone. However, given how low-quality and poorly maintained many of the ChatGPT apps are, it’s no wonder why people choose to pay for them and then cannot unsubscribe.
According to Sophos expert Sean Gallagher, the developers behind these dubious apps count on users not paying attention or forgetting that they signed up for a service. Plus, their apps often come with fake reviews and tons of ads before and after the trial period. With such tactics, even a few customers could result in high profits.
The researchers managed to identify five such apps and reported them to the platforms in order for them to be removed. If you, however, encountered such apps, you should pay close attention to the terms of service and act according to the vendor’s guidelines. Deleting the app is likely not enough to unsubscribe the service and you may still need to pay for the entire period.
