The call is completed, our robot called the number. What to do if a robot calls you: a new type of fraud

VKontakte is the number one social network in Russia. It has a huge number of registered users. Despite the fact that the social network is incredibly easy to use, sometimes problems arise with it. Here’s an example: a participant in this Internet project goes to his page and, instead of the usual wall with notes and his own avatar, he sees the inscription “We detected suspicious activity on the page and temporarily froze it in order to take it out of the hands of attackers.” This means that the account has been blocked and will need to be unblocked. How to do it? Why did the freeze happen? Let's look for answers to these difficult questions together.

Why was the page frozen?

Many users ask this question, because they have not committed anything illegal. So what's the deal? Actually the answer is very simple. The fact is that the accounts of social network participants are very often subject to hacker attacks. To be more precise, they try to guess the password for the pages, and if this happens successfully, once on the user’s page, the attackers begin to distribute malicious files and links, which often contain viruses. As soon as the project administration notices suspicious activity, it immediately freezes the profile.

To prevent this from happening, you need to remember a few simple rules. First, come up with as many complex password, so that it would be impossible to pick it up. It must consist of at least 12 characters and must contain numbers, letters and Special symbols type No.;%? and so on. Secondly, never, under any circumstances, save passwords in browsers, since this is where they can most easily be stolen by scammers using a simple virus. And, of course, never give access to the page even to the most best friends- this could end badly for you.

Unfreezing a page

Well, friends, we sincerely hope that you have learned simple rules, which we wrote about just above. Now let's move on directly to unfreezing your account. It's not at all difficult to do this. Go to home page project. In front of you you will see a sign that says “Restoring access to the page.” If nothing works, then just follow this link vk.com/restore.

The first thing you need to enter is a phone number or address email box, to which the page was registered. Enter one thing and enter the captcha in the window that appears.

You see your account. If this is him, then confirm this by clicking on the “Yes, this is the right page” button.

Now you need to wait until you receive a special code. If you previously entered your cell number, the code will be sent via SMS, but if you entered your email, you will have to check it Mailbox— there should be a link to restore access. Sometimes the code or message may arrive with a slight delay, be prepared for this.

Actually, that's the whole process. As you can see, there is nothing complicated about this.

If the code does not arrive within an hour, then the problem lies in something else. But what exactly? Take any anonymizer you know and try to access your page without entering your username and password. If it is not frozen, then there is a 99% probability that there is a virus on your computer that needs to be gotten rid of. This virus modifies a file located on your operating system and redirects you to a completely different resource, which only looks like VKontakte.

We will not go into details, but we note that it is sometimes impossible to find this virus even with the help of anti-virus software. That's why we offer you a simple solution. Download the Dr.Web CureIt! utility from the official website, which scans the system for malicious files and automatically changes hosts file to the original one. Just run the utility and click start. After some time (scanning can take from several minutes to several hours), you will be able to log into VKontakte.

And one more thing - if you are asked to send an SMS or enter your number mobile phone, know that they want to deceive you. Even if you send a message, the page will not be unfrozen, and you will lose Money on your account.

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a record number of complaints about robotic marketing calls (robocalls) from companies selling various goods and services. In total, ordinary Americans received more than 29 billion unwanted robocalls in 2016—double the number in 2015. By the end of this year, the number of intrusive calls may again double.

Many Americans do not even realize that they are talking to robots, since the latter have been taught to adapt to the answers and conduct a full-fledged dialogue. Robots no longer only distinguish between the words Yes and No, numbers and letters, but also reproduce the answers they receive. For example, if at the beginning of the conversation you call yourself John, then by the end of the conversation the robot will call you by name at least three times.

Also, robotic voices, which are absolutely no different from real ones, determine the level of irritability or interest of a person. Sometimes they deliberately divert the conversation and even joke so that the person is not confused by the marketing tone of the conversation.

For the first time in 20 years, smart sales robots have increased the average time of a marketing call to 5 minutes. Until 2016, this time was rapidly decreasing, since the majority of Americans immediately hung up on an offer to buy something.

Telephone marketing companies reported that robot sales performance increased by 120% year over year. Americans, however, are extremely annoyed by misleading calls, which sometimes occur several times a day (including at night).

Also, smart robots are often used by scammers to extract information about credit cards ah, social security numbers, etc.

For example, one Nigerian robotic system called 300 thousand Americans over three months and collected data on 16 thousand credit cards. The scammers didn’t even have to process the data. The robots transferred the verbally received information onto paper and gave the scammers a detailed report. Previously, to obtain such a volume of data, hundreds of professional telephone scammers would have to be involved in the call.

In another scheme, scammers received $54 million through calls on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The robot, in an agitated voice, threatened people with huge fines, legal proceedings and freezing of bank accounts if they did not agree to pay a fine of several hundred dollars. A brilliantly designed robocall had a powerful psychological effect on people, and they quickly paid off their “debts.”

With the “robocall epidemic” just beginning to spread across America, top FCC experts offer five helpful tips. They will help you save not only time and money, but also nerves.

First, ignore calls from unknown numbers. This is the simplest advice, which, naturally, people who are waiting for clients (lawyers, accountants, doctors and other specialists) cannot take into account. Everyone else has the opportunity to listen a voice message and decide whether they should call the caller back.

By the way, robots rarely leave Voicemail. It is more profitable for them to call some other person than to leave a message for someone who does not answer the phone.

Second, go to the National Do Not Call Registry online and block all your numbers—cell, home, work, etc.

If you have already done this a long time ago, then make sure once again that numbers are blocked from spam. National Do Not Call Registry is a government resource (hence unreliable) and yours phone numbers could disappear from a system that is constantly under attack by hackers.

Thirdly, download very convenient and reliable applications to your smartphone Truecaller, RoboKiller, Mr. Number, Nomorobo or Hiya, which will automatically block robot bell ringers.

These apps are hated by all the phone spammers in the world because the scams are less effective. The robot cannot reach a person either day or night.

Fourth, try to answer robots’ questions less often. The Yes and No you say are recorded and can be used to confirm your consent to buy a product or service. Sometimes robots say phrases like “Sir, if you answer “no”, then we will send you a subscription to only three magazines, not ten.” The person doesn’t listen to this phrase, says “no,” and after a while they will receive a bunch of unnecessary magazines with an invoice ready for payment.”

It is best not to say the words “yes” and “no” at all. If the robot asks if you can hear it (Can You Hear Me?), then answer that you can hear it (I Can Hear You).

Naturally, the best tactic when talking to a robot is to completely ignore it. Behave carefully and try to understand as quickly as possible that you are not dealing with a living person. Usually the robot starts to “glitch” after a long silence or non-standard answers, like I Can Hear You instead of Yes.

Fifth, always run the caller’s number online.

Typically, Google identifies spammers who have been calling from the same numbers for a long time. You can quickly understand whether the number belongs to a specific person/company or is being used for fraudulent purposes. If you receive a call from a blocked number, never pick up the phone.

Finally, I advise all readers to switch the phone ringer to the Silent position more often. Friends, family and colleagues - unlike robots - will always find a way to contact you ( Email, social media, text messages, video calls).

Vadim Dymarsky

+380 67 0000000

  • onlyto enter the site. The entire procedure is free.↵ ↵ Example for Russia:+7 906 2233300

  • Create a new album

  • Reason for blocking profile. messages:

  • Reason for blocking profile. This page has been frozen for posting such information on your behalf.in the "About Me" field:

  • Reason for blocking. This page has been frozen for sending mailings on your behalfpersonal messages.

  • Reason for blocking. This page was frozen for sending such messages on your behalfpersonal messages:

  • Install Flash Player

  • Video calling.To use the video calling service↵ You need to install (link)Adobe Flash Player(/link). ↵It will take no more than a minute.

  • Add a community to black list. All recent likes will be deleted and it will be added to the black list.

  • Confirm action.Are you sure you want to report community spam (user)?

  • Share a post in a community.Send to a community or friend

  • Literal: """Post sent""". ... Entry sent.↵ This post will now appear on the community page (name).

  • Entry sent.↵ Now this entry will appear in the news of your friends.

  • Header.Select audience

  • Audience selection

  • Share post.Share post

  • Share a post on behalf of your community

  • Literal: Subscribers of the community (name).

  • Share the post with your friends and subscribers

  • Friends and subscribers

  • Online

  • Show others

  • Surprise

  • What's your gender

  • Your last name

  • your name

  • Enter last name

  • Enter your name

  • Application canceled.↵ You have canceled your name change request.

  • You changed your name from "%s" to "%s".↵ (link)Undo name change(/link)

  • Use the alphabet for your language and make up som...VKontakte is commonly usedreal namein full form, written in Russian letters.↵ ↵ For example: Anna Petrova, Yan Ivanov.

  • Name change info. Use your alphabet for your langu...Unfortunately, your application to change your name was rejected.↵ We ask users to use their real names in full form, written in Russian letters.↵ ↵ You can try again using your real first and last name.↵ Please make sure before sending...

  • New name (checked by administrator):

  • Cancel the application

  • Maiden name:

  • Surname:

  • Surname:

  • Hide this message

  • Now you can change your name in the section (link)Edit page(/link)

  • It will be easier for you to find a person if you indicate himage.

  • Check your age

  • Please select the city where your university is located.↵ ↵ For example:Saint Petersburg

  • Please enter the number of the school you graduated from.↵ ↵ For example:42

  • Enter a city in your country. Please select the city where the school you graduated from is located.↵ ↵ For example:Saint Petersburg

  • The limit on the number of code entry attempts has been exceeded.↵ You can try to specify a different phone number.

  • Attempts left: (count)

  • Create a new blank page

  • Go to an existing page

  • We have already registered a page for the number (phone):

  • There is already a page attached to the number

  • labelCountry

  • It will be easier to find a friend if you indicate the place where hestudied.

  • Specify city

  • Hide gifts button.Hide gifts

  • Hide button

  • Search for friends.Search for friends

  • Hide gifts

  • Confirm action. Are you sure you wanthide gifts?↵ ↵ You can always return them to your page in the (link) sectionMy settings(/link) on tab (link1)Privacy(/link1).

  • Special offers.Promotions

  • Payment offers.Promotions

  • You need access to your webcam and microphone.↵ ↵ In the (link) settings window (/link) selectAllow, and then - Close.

  • Initialization...

  • Webcam is off.Webcam is turned off

  • Webcam is on

  • Photos on the community wall

  • Suggested apps.Recommendations

  • send

  • send

  • Password change. Password changed.↵ Your login and New Password were sent toSMS-message to the number (phone). This number is now linked to your page.

  • Change number linked to account.Can't change phone number.↵ An application to restore access to this page was recently approved. You can change the linked number no earlier than (date).

  • Change phone number linked to account.A different number (phone) is currently linked to this page.↵ Are you sure that

  • Do you want to link a new number to the page?

  • Too many attempts. Too many tries.↵ Please try again later.

  • The interlocutor does not answer.

  • The other person's webcam is turned off or unavailable.

  • New apps.New

  • Popular apps.Popular

  • In full screen

  • Collapse

  • Unmute

  • Mute sound

  • Enable webcam

  • Turn webcam off.Turn off the webcam

  • Turn on microphone

  • Mute microphone

  • This message will be shown under Flash Player Sett...Unable to allow access?↵ ↵ To resolve the problem, contact (link)support(/link).

  • Bookmarks section.Welcome to the updated I Liked section!↵ Now you can click I Like on main photo on the user's page so that this photo appears here with a link to the page. Old bookmarks are still available.

  • Video calls.You can call (user) when he is on the site. To use video, you need to turn on your webcam.

  • Filter.Notes only

  • Blacklisted phone number. You cannot use the specified phone number.

  • Phone number is blacklisted The specified phone number cannot be used.

  • Add your classmates as friends↵ and click “Go to the next step.”

  • Add your classmates as friends↵ and click “Go to the next step.”

  • A country

  • Go to the payment

  • Spring gifts.Spring

  • Winter gifts.Winter

  • Autumn gifts.Autumn

  • Summer gifts.Summer

  • Saint Patrick's Day gifts. St. Patrick's Day

  • Valentine's day gifts. Valentine's Day

  • Enter a description

  • Phone number available to you:

  • Please come up withyour password to enter the site.↵ ↵ Example password:(password)

  • Please, entermineMobile phone number. We have written the number you entered here as an example.

  • Please enter the code thatwill come in a message. We have written the code you entered here as an example.

  • What will VKontakte help with?

  • New message in %s conversation

  • It will come to your phone within a few seconds.4 -digit code.↵ ↵ Code example:0593

  • Mobile phone

  • To protect your page, we will send it to your mobile phonefreemessage with code.

  • Send code

  • Your number is not displayed anywhere and is not usedonlyto enter the site. The entire procedure is free.↵ ↵ Example number:+7 906 2233300

  • Questions about payments - only if the user is unable to solve the problem through vkontakte.ru/paysupp.php.↵ ↵ If the user claims that payment support did not answer his question, he needs to first check the page vk.com/paysupp .php...

  • Our robot called the number (phone), but, unfortunately, the phone was busy. Ask our robot to call you again?

  • Our robot called the number (phone), but, unfortunately, could not get through. Ask our robot to call you again?

  • Our robot called the number (phone), but, unfortunately, did not have time to finish. Ask our robot to call you again?

  • Our robot called the number (phone), but, unfortunately, no one answered. Ask our robot to call you again?

  • Call ended.↵ Our robot called the number (phone) and dictated the code.

  • Page confirmation

  • Number unavailable.↵ Unfortunately, our robot cannot call the number (phone).

  • We are calling you.↵ Our robot dials a number (phone).

  • If the message does not arrive30 seconds, we can ask our robotcallCall your number (phone) and dictate the code.

  • We have just sent you another SMS with a code!

  • No need, SMS has arrived

  • Yes, let the robot call

  • Message sent

  • Halloween

  • 1st of May

  • Easter

  • March 8

  • February 23

  • If your computer is equipped with a webcam, you can↵ (link)take an instant photo »(/link)

  • Skip search for classmates

  • Skip classmate search

  • Friendship

  • Romantic gifts.Romance

  • Birthday

  • Screenshot of an app

  • Only (link)responses(/link) are charged.

  • Notifications will be sent to users phone.

Banks are starting to use robots to communicate with customers and demand repayment of debts from them. Artificial intelligence does not take offense or break laws, and its services are cheaper than human labor

“In the mass consciousness, collectors are bouncers with soldering irons, for whom no law is written,” says Sergei Markov, IT director of the company “Active Business Collection” (“ActiveBK”). — Of course, the stereotype is far from reality, and the main tool of a collector is the telephone. But the work is stressful: debtors often allow themselves to insult operators. We are all human, and there is a risk that an inexperienced operator will fly off the handle and respond in kind.”

Sberbank's subsidiary AktivBK has developed a system based on artificial intelligence that conducts a cultural dialogue with the debtor, selecting answers based on what was said at the other end of the line. This helps eliminate the human factor and avoid fines for breaking the law. It is possible that such robotic collectors will become a ubiquitous phenomenon in the near future.

Debts and bots

Automation of work with clients is a noticeable trend in the banking market, but so far artificial intelligence, as a rule, only helps to process incoming calls.

Chatbots, which can automatically answer similar questions in writing, are actively used by many collection agencies and banks. For example, an application with such functions was developed by the Sentinel Credit Management agency (owned by Alfa Bank). The bot can tell the client all the information about the debt, remind the client about the date of the next payment in the form of a push notification, gives the opportunity to choose the amount of the payment and the date of its payment, and forwards more complex questions received in the chat to the operator. A similar product appeared at the Kreditexpress Finance agency - it has a chat, the ability to call an operator and an online payment function.

There are also non-standard solutions in this area: for example, to the question “how are you?” The chatbot of Modulbank's online cash register sends the entrepreneur up-to-date financial information - the opening time of the outlet, the number of checks, revenue, etc.

In 2012, Sberbank Vice President Svetlana Sagaidak invited managers to create and head a collection “subsidiary” of the country’s largest bank (“AktivBK” is 100% owned by Sberbank). “We set ourselves the task of attracting advanced market technologies in managing the collection of overdue debts and wanted to create our own platform for testing such technologies,” the Sberbank press service explained to RBC.

Initially, the subsidiary works with Sberbank on market terms, receiving approximately half of the problem debts individuals. At the same time, the company constantly competes with private agencies, between which the remaining part of Sberbank debts is distributed. “Nobody really feels sorry for us here,” says Teplitsky. “If we were given the entire debt portfolio, we would very quickly turn into fat leeches.”

To save money, managers created an intelligent CRM system that determines what time zone the client lives in, takes into account the gender, age, employment of the debtor, and statistics on previous calls. Analysis of all these factors together allows you to find the optimal time for dialing and increases the number of successful negotiations with the debtor by 2-3%. “Given the huge volume of negotiations, this little thing is converted into very serious money,” says Markov.​


Sergey Markov and Dmitry Teplitsky (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo / RBC)

On average, the agency receives a fee of 5-20% of the amount of the returned debt. Currently, AktivBK already works with 27 banks (Otkrytie, B&N Bank, etc.), this area accounts for about 25% of the company’s revenue structure. Another quarter of the income comes from the collection of debts purchased from creditors under an assignment agreement, and the main turnover - about 50% - is provided by work with Sberbank debtors. According to SPARK data, AktivBK's revenue in 2016 amounted to 990 million rubles, net profit - 375 million. There are about 1 thousand operators in the state.

Collect according to law

Since January 1, 2017, the work of collectors is regulated by the law “On the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of individuals when carrying out activities to repay overdue debts” (230-FZ). He imposed serious restrictions on creditors. Thus, the collector can now call the debtor no more than eight times a month, on weekdays from 8 to 22 hours, on weekends - from 9 to 20 hours, has no right to use hidden number phone and communicate with friends and relatives of the defaulter, etc. Despite the impressive list of prohibitions, the innovations did not help to whitewash the market, says lawyer Ivan Khapalin: “All of the listed prohibitions can already be derived by interpreting the Constitution, so 230-FZ simply collected the rules into a separate legislative act.” “The law was a serious blow to the entire market: the number of telephone calls sharply decreased, which led to mass layoffs of operators,” argues Sergei Markov from AktivBK. “And black collectors continue to threaten debtors.”

Chatbots and robot dialers have an important advantage - they are classified by law as auto-informers and allow debt collectors to bypass the ban on interacting with debtors more than twice a week, emphasizes Alexander Kulikov, Deputy Director for Regional and International Development of the European Legal Service. The auto-informer can disturb the debtor up to four times a day.

Rescue neural network

In parallel with its main collection activities, AktivBK was developing its own human speech recognition system. “Previously, quality control of operators’ work was carried out manually by listening to conversations. But it’s impossible to listen to all conversations, and in one of a thousand conversations something may come across that will put an end to the company’s reputation,” says Sergei. In addition, operators who are entitled to a bonus for the number of successful negotiations often, after the conversation, indicated a “promise of payment” in the system, when in fact the debtor did not promise anything. The speech recognition system prevents such tricks: it converts the flow of words into text, looks for phrases required by the script or, conversely, prohibited phrases, and produces a summary: how successful the conversation was and what is the forecast for the future behavior of the defaulter.

By the beginning of 2016, the technology was ready and working. Markov presented it to the board of directors of Sberbank, whose members advised to “tweak” the product and create a robotic collector that can not only recognize, but also synthesize speech. They drew up a plan according to which development would take two and a half years. But it was not there.


Sergey Markov and Dmitry Teplitsky (Photo: Vladislav Shatilo / RBC)

At one of the meetings at Sberbank, a Russian company spoke, which proposed to develop and sell to Sberbank its own robotic collector. Competitor AktivBK showed a demo version of the technology and promised to sell the finished product to the bank within a year. “I was at that meeting and the devil pulled me to say that we will make the same demo in two weeks, and the finished product in a year, only much cheaper,” recalls Sergei. “In the end, we spent two weeks running around the ceiling, but we met the deadline.” Already at the beginning of 2017, the robot collector passed the first tests inside ActiveBK.

From the outside, the system works like this: a young man or girl calls debtors; The caller states the debtor's last name, first name, and patronymic and asks to confirm his date of birth. If the data matches those in the database, the voice announces the amount of the debt and warns about the consequences of non-payment. At the same time, the robot conducts a dialogue with the debtor, answering his questions, and if the interlocutor interrupts the collector, he asks to listen to the end. This is the main difference from dozens of already existing programs— the system does not just voice a pre-written text, but “thinks” how to conduct a conversation depending on the interlocutor’s remarks. And only if the conversation reaches a dead end, the robot (and it was him) switches the conversation to a live operator.

Technically, the robot collector from AktivBK is several recurrent ones (with the presence feedback) neural networks trained to act according to a script with thousands of possible scenarios for the development of dialogue. For the system to work, operators listen to hundreds of hours of real conversations and supply the speech stream with subtitles, which they then use to train neural network. “The robot consists of three main blocks,” explains Sergei. “The first is the speech recognition system of the interlocutor, the second is the speech synthesis system that allows the robot to speak, and the third is the business logic that determines the meaning of what the debtor said.”

According to the creators of the robot, technology with such functionality has not yet been on the market. “Individually, IT tools to improve the efficiency of collectors have long been actively used both in chatbots and in the interactive voice interaction (IVR) system,” confirms Dmitry Pesotsky, manager for promoting solutions for contact centers at CROC. — Another thing is to collect all these technologies into a complex product and find your niche in the market. In this regard, colleagues have taken a step forward.”

"Iron instead of brains"

According to Sergei Markov, in August 2017, the efficiency of the robot collector was 24% higher than that of live operators - so much more often debtors paid overdue payments within two weeks after the machine called than after communicating with the operator. “It’s impossible to piss off a robot—it has a piece of hardware instead of a brain. Even if the debtor behaves incorrectly, the robot will not be offended and will not respond in kind - it simply does not have such expressions in the script,” says Teplitsky.

Now the robot collector calls a small part of Sberbank’s debtors: out of 250 thousand calls made by the company per day, artificial intelligence accounts for several hundred conversations. Since August, AktivBK has been servicing some calls to help desk jar. “Now we’re not only paying off debts, but we’ve finally started doing something good,” Markov laughs.

An RBC correspondent talked to the AktivBK robot - the voice sounds mechanical, but the system actually recognizes the remarks addressed to it. However, an attempt to explain to the robot that the journalist was currently having problems with his job and that he would not be able to pay for some time was unsuccessful - the robot did not understand and said goodbye. According to the developers themselves, the robot is still “raw”: it does not recognize all phrases and often ends the conversation by redirecting the call to a live operator. Even if the technology reaches new level, the robot will not be able to conduct complex negotiations - it is intended only for the first informative call, Sberbank confirms. “Operators themselves are now reduced to the level of a robot: they have to repeat the same phrases during the first call,” says Teplitsky. “The robot will save people from a gigantic share of routine work that does not require intellectual effort.”

According to Sergei Markov’s calculations, the cost of robot labor is almost three times lower than the cost of operator work: a minute of automatic conversation costs AktivBK 2.7 rubles, a minute of operator work costs 6.5 rubles. (however, these calculations do not take into account the initial investment in developing the bot). They will begin selling robot collector services to third-party banks in the coming month: according to Teplitsky, agreements with the three “largest banks in the country” are already at the signing stage.

To make automated calls more effective, the agency also plans to implement emotional markings of conversations. “A person, for example, can say: yes, I will pay. Or maybe: yeah, now, I’ll pay. The set of words is similar, but the meaning is diametrically opposite,” explains Sergei. The next step is to create new system under the working title “cyborg collector”, which will help the operator conduct complex negotiations (by analyzing the dialogue and displaying information about the debtor and other clues on the monitor online).

“We do not pretend to replace a person with a machine - this is completely impossible,” says Sergei. “Machine learning will take away some of our jobs, but it will create even more by making human work smarter.” The head of Sberbank, German Gref, is more determined - he will cut half of the bank's 330 thousand employees by 2025.

View from the outside

“Technology will whitewash the market and save people from routine”

Konstantin Ordov, professor of the Department of Financial Management of the Russian Economic University. G.V. Plekhanov

“The need for a robot collector was a consequence of a series of criminal reprisals between debt collectors and debtors. The shadow cast on the collection business forced legislators to tighten requirements for the market, which put the collection business on the threshold of profitability. A cheap alternative to human labor in such conditions is a real godsend.

Sometimes you get the feeling that the scripts developed by Sberbank have already turned all their employees into robots, so the interlocutor may not notice the substitution. But the main thing here is that the robot is not capable of emotions, it is impossible to “tempt” it into aggression, to arouse pity in it. All this significantly increases the efficiency of the robot collector.”

“In two to three years, a third of conversations with debtors will be conducted by robots”

Dmitry Pesotsky, manager for promotion of solutions for contact centers at CROC

“Technologies based on artificial intelligence are a very promising niche: in two to three years, 30-35% of communication with clients of banks and collection agencies will take place using artificial intelligence. However, these technologies are still developing at the hype level. The robot is not universal: its highest conversion will be at the soft collection stage, when the amount of debt is still small. Here robots will remind you of debt. A client who has switched to the hard collection category should be spoken to by an experienced operator who can structure the dialogue as flexibly as possible.”

“Robots will replace debt collectors, just as they replaced recruiters and lawyers.”

Alexander Trifonov, co-owner of the legal service 48Prav.ru

“The robot collector is an absolutely working and large-scale story. Obviously, this technology will significantly displace collection companies with a staff consisting only of live operators. Proof of this is robot lawyers and robot recruiters, who are already successfully competing with human specialists. The savings are also obvious: the cost of software development is really high, but in a few years its operation will not only recoup costs, but also increase margins by reducing payroll costs.”