N.S. woman says duct-cleaning company used AI-generated photos to fake work

A Dartmouth, N.S. woman says her recent experience with a duct-cleaning company has left her feeling scammed, alleging that AI-generated images were used to make it appear work had been completed when it hadn’t.

Shernette Smith says she saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace promoting home duct-cleaning services for $150, which she thought was a good price.

“I’d never had it really professionally done, and I do have asthma. My son has asthma, so, I thought, it’s a good idea. Let me try these people,” she said.

Smith says she began communicating with the company on WhatsApp to set up an appointment and two men showed up at her home on Oct. 9.

During the appointment, which she estimates took about 45 minutes, Smith says a worker told her that the blower motor of her furnace was “filthy.”

“He opened the main furnace door, took a photo, and comes back out and shows me a very dirty motor and said, ‘You’ve got mould, ma’am.’ And I’ve never really looked at (the duct), so I believed him,” she said.

Smith says the workers offered to clean it for an extra $250, which would have brought the total to $400. They eventually agreed on $300 for the entire job.

She said the workers told her the work was finished and she paid them.

“He said, ‘I’m all done, ma’am.’ And he shows (me a picture on his phone of) this motor that looks almost new. I was impressed. I was like, ‘Wow, that is so clean,” she said.

But when Smith went downstairs to check for herself after the crew had left, she was shocked to see a completely different result from the one she was shown in the photo.

“It was still filthy. All the dirt was still in that section where the filter goes. So that’s when I knew he had scammed me,” she said.

Smith received the photos the company had shown her, which she shared with Global News.

She says she spent hours messaging back and forth with the company, which denied any wrongdoing. After repeatedly complaining, she was refunded the $300 she had paid.

Cybersecurity and AI experts weigh in

The company Smith contacted was called Fresh Air Quality, which has a website that boasts of offering air-duct cleaning services across Canada. The website includes videos the company describes as testimonials from satisfied customers, who are all speaking to the camera and giving glowing reviews.

Global News sent an email and called three phone numbers associated with the business, but received no response. At one point, it seemed someone had picked up the phone but promptly hung up.

Cybersecurity expert Chester Wisneki reviewed the website for Global News and traced phone numbers affiliated with the company to other pages offering the same service under different names. Some shared the identical customer reaction videos.

There have been examples where illegitimate firms have used 20 different brands for the same group of people, said Wisneki, director of global field CISO at the security firm, Sophos.

“You know they’ll all be the same group and they rotate through the names because as soon as the word gets out that they’re a scam, they need a new brand,” he said.

Siwei Lyu, an AI researcher based at the University at Buffalo, also analyzed the photos provided to Smith.

He and two of his students created an AI report for Global News, which found a Google synth ID watermark on the photo of the clean blower motor, which is a way of identifying AI-generated images.

Lyu says AI-detector Sightengine also gave the photo a 99 per cent AI score.

“It showed a high response that comes from a generative model. So that’s our strongest evidence this image may come from AI,” he said.

Lyu adds that the photos on the company’s website also appear to be AI-generated, however, their customer review videos showed no signs of AI use.

Lyu says Smith did the right thing by collecting and keeping the images, which could be analyzed. Anyone who believes they are being deceived can check for AI use using similar tools.

“All the tools we use are either open source, free, or you pay a small fee for using them. But I think the procedure is very much repeatable,” he said.

‘Scare tactics’

The National Air Duct Cleaners Association, a global trade association, says consumers need to take precautions when hiring a company.

Association board member Matt Mountain says training for employees can be lacking “because there’s no licensing requirements like plumbing or electrical.”

As well, prices can vary because the industry isn’t highly regulated.

“If you’re planning on somebody coming to your house and expecting them to spend two to four hours or more, (which is) what you want (for) a high quality cleaning, then if you’ve seen a price that seems way too cheap, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” he said.

He adds some companies will use “scare tactics” to get people to spend more money — like saying there’s mould.

“(They’ll) tell you that they’re going to remove mould and they’re going to sanitize your system and they are going to make all these health promises. High quality companies in general aren’t going to resort to those types of (marketing) systems,” he said.

“We certainly do mould remediation as part of HVAC cleaning work but they’re just using those trigger words to try and get people kind of scared.”

He says people should get personal recommendations for contractors “from somebody they know and trust.”

Civil matter, not fraud

Meanwhile, Smith says she spoke with Halifax Regional Police about her experience. However, she was told by police that her case was considered a civil matter and not fraud.

She was advised that it was not a police matter but that she could approach the media or write a negative review.

A police spokesperson confirmed to Global News the case is not considered fraud.

Moving forward, Smith says she will be extra diligent before using a company’s services.

“Just make sure they’re not showing you just images on their phones, because those can be manipulated,” she said.