Mysterious phone calls from an AI telemarketing agent are prompting fears among members of the public.
NestEdge, a company based in Auckland, has been called out on social media for the past several months with concerns about its AI agent, “Ben”.
Kiwis have been receiving calls in which an automated voice introduces itself as AI agent, Ben, calling from NestEdge.
“Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that there’s an AI ... call going around and it sounds quite convincing at first ... it answers a bit like ChatGPT,” one social media user wrote.
“Just had a call from these guys from the same number. Sounds very scammy!” said another.
Some commenters said they “swiftly blocked” the numbers NestEdge called them from, while others urged people to “normalise not answering unknown numbers“.
Several Reddit threads discussed Ben’s convincing New Zealand accent and expressed concern for older people who would not understand they were not speaking to a real human.
“Our elderly population don’t stand a chance,” one post said.
One user pointed out that Reddit posts about NestEdge had become so frequent, Google results for the company immediately brought up those threads.
Wellington woman Maggie O’Leary-Noyer recently got a call from “Ben” at NestEdge who said he was running a wealth survey across New Zealand households.
She answered by saying her name but he replied by calling her “Emily” and when she corrected him, he did not acknowledge his mistake.
When Ben told her he was an AI, she immediately hung up.
“It sounded like a regular voice at first, and then I noticed that there was no background noise at all,” she said.
“It was just flat, so if it stopped speaking it would be like it wasn’t a phone call at all.”
O’Leary-Noyer found posts about NestEdge on Reddit that went back several months, then messaged her flatmates and her mum warning them about the company.
Consumer NZ’s research showed the number of reported scam victims in New Zealand has fallen in recent months.
That might be because many organisations, including banks, have told people to be cautious when receiving an unexpected call, request or offer from an unknown source, Consumer’s campaigns manager Jessica Walker told the Herald.
“We know that many of our members choose to block or ignore unknown numbers in an effort to avoid cold callers or scams,” Walker said.
“Given that this particular organisation seems to be calling from a local phone number, we can understand why people are picking up the phone and then assuming that the unsolicited call is a scam.”
The New Zealand Business Register showed NestEdge was incorporated in late 2024.
The Herald tried contacting the company through multiple avenues but did not receive an official response.
A call-centre worker said NestEdge offered “free consultations to home owners” but did not expand on what that meant.
The Commerce Commission had not received any complaints about NestEdge but had received 14 reported concerns related to AI chat bots or AI agents in the past year.
The use of AI to automate business functions is not illegal and the Commission was aware many companies were exploring that technology, general manager of competition, fair trading, and credit Vanessa Horne said.
She said businesses should not use AI to create fake or misleading content, which included giving consumers the impression they are based in a different location than where they actually are.
She also said businesses should monitor any AI-generated content and ensure controls are in place to confirm what is said to consumers was accurate.
“We would encourage anyone concerned a business is breaching one of the laws we enforce to report a concern to the Commission,” Horne said.
Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.