# Automatic Scam-Baiting Using ChatGPT

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01586 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.01586/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 4 Sep 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Bot Wars Evolved: Orchestrating Competing LLMs in a Counterstrike Against Phone Scams](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07036/) (2025)
- [Application of AI-based Models for Online Fraud Detection and Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19022/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Automatic scam-baiting is an online fraud countermeasure that involves automated systems responding to online fraudsters in order to waste their time and deplete their resources, diverting attackers away from real potential victims. Previous work has demonstrated that text generation systems are capable of engaging with attackers as automatic scam-baiters, but the fluency and coherence of generated text may be a limit to the effectiveness of such systems. In this paper, we report on the results of a month-long experiment comparing the effectiveness of two ChatGPT-based automatic scam-baiters to a control measure. Within our results, with engagement from over 250 real email fraudsters, we find that ChatGPT-based scam-baiters show a marked increase in scammer response rate and conversation length relative to the control measure, outperforming previous approaches. We discuss the implications of these results and practical considerations for wider deployment of automatic scam-baiting.