Scams are constantly evolving and scammers do not sleep, added Reshma. “They operate in different time zones, or run on shifts,” she said. The mother of a ten-year-old boy said her job is to constantly stay a step ahead of scammers.
This year, at OGP’s annual hackathon in January, where officers “build prototypes that tackle real problems in the community’, Reshma worked on AI Aunty.
It’s a bot designed to divert suspicious calls and engage scammers, wasting their time so they can’t reach potential victims. It runs in the back end and does not involve users directly. Currently in trial phase, this bot is likely to be launched at the end of the year.
Beyond government intervention, community effort is crucial, she added.
“You need to have a community, whether through an app (like ScamShield), or when sitting down in a community club together to share information.
“If you are not sure if something is a scam, and one person in your network checks and says it is probably not legit, that seeds some discomfort in your mind, and you won’t engage,” she said.
“But when you are very siloed and you don’t have tools to help yourself, then it becomes very difficult to extricate yourself from scams,” Reshma added.
