British mobile phone company Virgin Media O2 has rolled out a new method to vex phone scammers, an artificial intelligence “granny” that keeps them tied up talking so they can’t target real customers.

The “granny” named Daisy talks to scammers about her family, her cat and knitting and fails to follow the instructions of the scammers, thereby keeping them on the phone in the vain hope that they get her to give them what they want.

“While they’re busy talking to me, they can’t be scamming you. And let’s face it, dear, I’ve got all the time in the world,” Daisy says in a promotional video.

Daisy, which is a combination of multiple AI models, listens and responds to attempted fraud calls and has kept the perpetrators on the phone for as long as 40 minutes, O2 said last month.

To tie up the scammers, O2 has put phone numbers that lead to Daisy in various lists used to find victims, according to NPR. 

Before launching Daisy, O2 blocked fraudulent transactions. In 2023, the company stopped about $315 million worth of fraud, about one transaction every two minutes, according to CNN.

While Daisy is only available in the U.K., there are similar alternatives in the U.S. Apate.ai’s AI.Callee is used with the cooperation of phone service providers and other businesses to redirect identified scam calls to the chatbots and similarly waste the time of attempted scammers.

Another company, Scamnetic, also offers a scam call detection product, according to Fox News.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.