Ai Chat Bots wasting my time?!

[smithster1]

I run a B2B manufacturing business.. All based online, they send us their job and we get it made.
I keep getting enquiries from @gmail or @yahoo and they all look the same and sound the same.
All are what look like genuine enquiries, and most have ugly Ai generated images as their 'artwork designs'. I can spot these from a mile away now. But the conversations keep dragging on and on, as if it's a chat bot trying to learn language and interaction. To the point now where we have had to create copy and paste blocks of messages as well as have a strict policy of closing the sale as soon as possible and it's wasting valuable time. We even try to get them on the phone as soon as possible, some even zoom calls (which I refuse to take) and my business partner says they are real people, but I am convinced even that is possible to fake these days.

Are there people out there now creating these Ai agents and unleashing them into the world to go and waste people's time so they can learn language with real interactions?!? There are literally 1000s of videos from 14 year olds online telling you how to create and train ai agents to eventually sell them on for 'huge profits' I do not have time for this! Anyone else experiencing this??

 

[fisicx]

It’s all bots. Often they sent the emails to check if the address is real and see if you respond. If you do respond they sell the address to all their mates so you can get even more spam.

Nuke it before arrival. You can set up filters at server level.

 

[smithster1]

Yes but how do you know if it's genuine Ai, as opposed to a customer. Can't be throwing away possible leads can we.

 

[fisicx]

You set up filters.

If the AI slop keeps using the same phrase you create a filter to nuke the message if that phrase is used.

Or just junk as soon as it arrives. Never ever respond.

Consider also a business won’t be using @yahoo and unlikely to send using @gmail.

 

[smithster1]

You set up filters.

If the AI slop keeps using the same phrase you create a filter to nuke the message if that phrase is used.

Or just junk as soon as it arrives. Never ever respond.

Consider also a business won’t be using @yahoo and unlikely to send using @gmail.

We have had paid jobs from gmail tho, this is the issue.

 

[fisicx]

We have had paid jobs from gmail tho, this is the issue.

But you can still set up filters.

 

[smithster1]

But you can still set up filters.

To filter what tho??

Here's an email that just come in and it is the same format as all the other ai rubbish.. (some details removed for security)...

------------------------------------------------
From: Jesus Abreu <[email protected]>
Subject: [your-subject]

Message Body:
Hello

My name is Jesus Abreu and I am the founder of VORTHOS, a premium REMOVED brand with a minimalist, elegant, and functional design approach, inspired by high-quality materials and attention to detail.

We are currently preparing our first product launch in Europe and are looking for a manufacturing partner who can produce REMOVED, etc. with custom colors, materials, and REMOVED.

Our goal is to start with small initial quantities to test the market, with the potential to scale production in the medium term. We highly value quality, sustainability, and excellent finishing.

I would appreciate receiving information on:
1. Your production capabilities and available materials.
2. Minimum order quantities (MOQ) for a first batch.
3. Customization and private labeling options.
4. Lead times and shipping terms to Germany.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your response so we can discuss a potential collaboration in more detail.

Kind regards,
Jesus Abreu
Founder – VORTHOS

------------------------------------------------

 

[Gecko001]

Is it possible to get a phone number and only do business initially that way? No engagement using bots, exchange of emails, or Whatsapp etc. before you talk to a real person and are satisfied that they will not waste your time.

 

[fisicx]

Filter by IP would be a good start.

You could also remove the email address from your website (or obfuscate) and just have a contact form.

Do you delete the junk emails or mark as spam?

 

[WaveJumper]

Personally I would go down the contact form route.

Have you also noticed how all these online adverts for inventions you never knew you need are going to "disrupt the market" and take over ......... ive not seen to much disruption yet but funny how its always the same voice over.

 

[DontAsk]

I've been getting these sorts of e-mails for years. The dead giveaway is a list of questions that they could answer if they simply looked at out website.

I'm not convinced they're bots. As someone has already said, they are scammers just looking for live e-mail addresses.

 

[HFE Signs]

Do you notice a string of words in a sentence that are consistent? You can filter against body contains

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I am the founder of VORTHOS

Pick up the phone...?

 

[smithster1]

Pick up the phone...?

Yep, this is something we get to as soon as possible, we alway say are you free for a quick call, and then try to quickly close them with prices of samples or bulk order.

 

[smithster1]

Do you notice a string of words in a sentence that are consistent? You can filter against body contains

Yes, more so the format of the email, specific info at ceretain points in the email.. I have now added WPForms (wordpress) andf it has inbuilt Captcha that works well..

 

[smithster1]

I've been getting these sorts of e-mails for years. The dead giveaway is a list of questions that they could answer if they simply looked at out website.

I'm not convinced they're bots. As someone has already said, they are scammers just looking for live e-mail addresses.

Live email address, that makes sense and equally is even more dangerous for our time. .

 

[smithster1]

Filter by IP would be a good start.

You could also remove the email address from your website (or obfuscate) and just have a contact form.

Do you delete the junk emails or mark as spam?

That's a good idea, as yes we do have the info@ in the footer... I can see how a bot would be able to search for this... going to remove it now. Thanks!

 

[smithster1]

Is it possible to get a phone number and only do business initially that way? No engagement using bots, exchange of emails, or Whatsapp etc. before you talk to a real person and are satisfied that they will not waste your time.

I think email and online is such a vital part to our business, being an online only business and we have enquiries from London to Las Vegas.

 

[smithster1]

I updated the contact form, to WPForms, ut has a good inbuilt recaptcha, and it seemed to have worked.. I am going to remove email from the footer as I suspect this is where they are getting it from.

 

[DontAsk]

I got one offering to come and audit our cleaning services as he was in the area.

I nearly agreed just to see the look on his face after the explosion when he tells my wife she doesn't keep the house clean enough.

Another idea was to reply "Time was when it was "Gypsys" who were "In the area" and would offer to tarmac your drive. Now it seems to be cleaners"

 

[fisicx]

Had one come to quote for a conservatory. We lived in an upstairs flat.

And the double glazing salesman measured us up for a full set of windows but got most miffed when I said to send the quote to the MoD. We lived in an Army house.

 

[DontAsk]

Had one come to quote for a conservatory. We lived in an upstairs flat.

And the double glazing salesman measured us up for a full set of windows but got most miffed when I said to send the quote to the MoD. We lived in an Army house.

We had new windows. Shortly after, our neighbour had new windows. The salesman called round to see if we wanted new windows. He didn't bat an eyelid when I showed him the ones that were just a few months old "well, we can replace them". I honestly think he was serious.

 

[smithster1]

Had one come to quote for a conservatory. We lived in an upstairs flat.

And the double glazing salesman measured us up for a full set of windows but got most miffed when I said to send the quote to the MoD. We lived in an Army house.

At least you get to meet your scammers

 

[fantheflames]

These kinds of things can really eat into your time. Best approach is to set up filters. It's not going to stop all these emails coming through but will cut them down and super easy to set up. I'd remove your email address from your site or make it non-clickable, and if you can block IP addresses through your control panel or form settings. You could also add a website URL and LinkedIn profile field that might put off some scammers (although I guess could use fake ones).

 

[DontAsk]

Recently I have been getting a lot of these offers for security or IT or cleaning reviews that have seemingly genuine from e-mail addresses and the companies exist and operate in the filed, e.g. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10021384/filing-history. They're not simply a case of someone's address book being use by scammers, and I don't think it's a bot. I can't understand what the scam is, if any. My domain blacklist is getting quite long.

Are businesses now so desperate they have resorted to even more spamming?

 

[fisicx]

Are businesses now so desperate they have resorted to even more spamming?

Yes. And using cheap overseas labour to send the emails. There are sausage factory businesses in Asia sending out millions of the things every day.

 

[smithster1]

These kinds of things can really eat into your time. Best approach is to set up filters. It's not going to stop all these emails coming through but will cut them down and super easy to set up. I'd remove your email address from your site or make it non-clickable, and if you can block IP addresses through your control panel or form settings. You could also add a website URL and LinkedIn profile field that might put off some scammers (although I guess could use fake ones).

Filter IP address from certain countries or the oens that keep popping up? I think I can access these through my Cpanel.. I will check and ask my web guy how to do this

 

[DontAsk]

Recently I have been getting a lot of these offers for security or IT or cleaning reviews that have seemingly genuine from e-mail addresses and the companies exist and operate in the filed

I realised they almost all (98%) use a subdomain "c." for any links in the message body. Maybe using the same spamming tool or the same agency to run their campaigns.

It was very easy to filter incoming messages containing "//c." straight into the junk folder. I am not concerned about losing the very few that may be legitimate offers.

 

[smithster1]

I realised they almost all (98%) use a subdomain "c." for any links in the message body. Maybe using the same spamming tool or the same agency to run their campaigns.

It was very easy to filter incoming messages containing "//c." straight into the junk folder. I am not concerned about losing the very few that may be legitimate offers.

Hi. can you give me an example with this subdomain???
Do you get the same issue? Bot emails that waste your time? I can easily spot them, the language is dry and overly enthusiastic.

 

[Nathanto]

the language is dry and overly enthusiastic.

Concur and it's the same with AI forum posts - pretty easy to spot on UK forums as in the main we Brits really are the stereotypical 'reserved' types.

 

[smithster1]

Concur and it's the same with AI forum posts - pretty easy to spot on UK forums as in the main we Brits really are the stereotypical 'reserved' types.

We have a google docs page open constantly and we have copy and paste answers with everything on, copy paste, copy paste until we realise they are human... I am convinced even phone calls, they have ai bots now that can handle full conversation... Just not got the balls to shout ARE YOU AI?!

 

[fisicx]

Many companies only use AI for first line support. There are some exceptions but it’s likely to get worst before it gets better. If it ever does get better.

Needed some help this morning with an IT issue. No phone number, only a chatbot that couldn’t answer the question. Went round and round and didn’t ever get resolved. Even their community forum is full of AI bots.

 

[smithster1]

Many companies only use AI for first line support. There are some exceptions but it’s likely to get worst before it gets better. If it ever does get better.

Needed some help this morning with an IT issue. No phone number, only a chatbot that couldn’t answer the question. Went round and round and didn’t ever get resolved. Even their community forum is full of AI bots.

Madness.. Can't they see an opportunity to be different, to be human, to actually care?!

 

[ctrlbrk]

Madness.. Can't they see an opportunity to be different, to be human, to actually care?!

Not if there are cost savings to be had. Most companies think like that.

There will be the inevitable learning curve that AI can't be possibly used in 100% of the scenarios. Good companies understand that today and have a "human backup" (as horrible as that sonds) but, for now, the end-user is suffering for the most part.

 

[smithster1]

Not if there are cost savings to be had. Most companies think like that.

There will be the inevitable learning curve that AI can't be possibly used in 100% of the scenarios. Good companies understand that today and have a "human backup" (as horrible as that sonds) but, for now, the end-user is suffering for the most part.

We are going to have to put you on hold for 45 minutes, please enjoy our jangly robot music and we will get our Ai bot to answer you shortly...

 

[fisicx]

We are going to have to put you on hold for 45 minutes, please enjoy our jangly robot music and we will get our Ai bot to answer you shortly...

But you won’t have to wait 45 minutes. That’s the whole point of using bots. They can deal with multiple clients simultaneously.

 

[mikewilliam474]

I run a B2B manufacturing business.. All based online, they send us their job and we get it made.
I keep getting enquiries from @gmail or @yahoo and they all look the same and sound the same.
All are what look like genuine enquiries, and most have ugly Ai generated images as their 'artwork designs'. I can spot these from a mile away now. But the conversations keep dragging on and on, as if it's a chat bot trying to learn language and interaction. To the point now where we have had to create copy and paste blocks of messages as well as have a strict policy of closing the sale as soon as possible and it's wasting valuable time. We even try to get them on the phone as soon as possible, some even zoom calls (which I refuse to take) and my business partner says they are real people, but I am convinced even that is possible to fake these days.

Are there people out there now creating these Ai agents and unleashing them into the world to go and waste people's time so they can learn language with real interactions?!? There are literally 1000s of videos from 14 year olds online telling you how to create and train ai agents to eventually sell them on for 'huge profits' I do not have time for this! Anyone else experiencing this??

Yeah, we’ve been seeing the same thing Gmail/Yahoo “enquiries” that sound real at first but turn weirdly repetitive. Pretty sure many are AI generated agents testing conversations. We now ask for a company domain email or quick call before quoting saves a lot of wasted time. Anyone else filtering these somehow?

 

[Newchodge]

We had new windows. Shortly after, our neighbour had new windows. The salesman called round to see if we wanted new windows. He didn't bat an eyelid when I showed him the ones that were just a few months old "well, we can replace them". I honestly think he was serious.

Ihad exactly that, even when I had pointed out the 'old' windows were less than 2 months old.