By Kate Knibbs
Publication Date: 2026-05-26 10:00:00
She introduced herself as Eve, but Ben knew immediately that the voice on the other end of the line was a bot. Eva knew his name. She also knew how much money he owed a former landlord ($266). She didn’t seem to know that he had settled with a debt collection agency five months ago. Eve said she was an AI agent from ProCollect, calling to collect a debt. “Would you like to resolve the issue today via card or bank transfer?” she asked.
Ben had stepped outside to answer the call on a balmy April afternoon in Portland, Oregon. (He asked WIRED to use a pseudonym so he could speak freely about a financial topic.) As he stood in the sun, he wondered what he would have to say to get Eve to transfer a call to a human. “I thought it would just direct me to someone if I asked about the repayment structure or something more technical,” he says. But Eve stayed on the line and Ben stayed on the phone. He decided – why not? – to mess around with the bot a bit.
Ben says he asked the bot to…