These fake ChatGPT apps are just here to scam you out of your money
Unscrupulous developers are taking advantage of the AI chatbot craze to trick people out of their hard-earned money, and it’s working.
Cybersecurity researchers from Sophos have analyzed Google’s and Apple’s mobile app stores and found multiple fake ChatGPT apps which, through dubious practices, forced users into subscribing to a service.
While the apps aren't particularly damaging or malware in the sense that they'll destroy the device or steal information, they will try and get the victims to pay. The apps claim to offer the functionality of ChatGPT (which is basically an AI-powered chatbot) and offer a free trial (or a free model with ads), and a paid subscription model. The free/ads model is either heavily limited (available for three days, for example) or comes with so many ad popups and distractions that it’s simply unusable.
The paid model ranges from $10 a month to $300+ a year. So far, some developers earned $10,000 in March. Others raked in more than a million in the same timeframe.
