I came across an interesting blog post this week about fake surveying websites and the risks they pose to both consumers and legitimate professionals. If you would like to read the original article, you can find it here.
It got me thinking.
A few years ago, spotting a fraudulent website was pretty straightforward. The grammar was terrible, the photographs were obviously stock images, the claims were ridiculous, and the whole thing didn’t look right.
Artificial intelligence has changed that.
Today, AI can produce a convincing website in seconds. It can create polished biographies, glowing customer reviews, professional looking logos, and even photographs of people that don’t exist.
Some of these AI-generated images can be quite amusing. People using bizarre equipment that doesn’t actually exist, back-to-front reflections in a window, gormless people wearing hard hats staring vacuously into an iPad.
The problem is that the technology is improving.
Very quickly.
And that’s no joke.
The real question
This means that the old way of judging a business by its website is becoming increasingly unreliable.
The question is no longer whether a website looks professional.
The real question is whether there is an actual accountable professional behind it.
Who are they?
What qualifications do they have?
Are they regulated?
Can you verify any of the information they are presenting?
Those questions are more important than an impressive looking website.
It’s not just consumers
There is another problem.
Fraudulent operators do not just affect the public. They affect legitimate professionals as well.
A convincing website can borrow the language, appearance, and credibility of genuine chartered practices. It can imitate established firms, misuse professional designations, copy report formats, and even adopt local branding to appear authentic.
There may be something like a hundred of these websites already in existence. Possibly more.
The average member of the public is unlikely to know the difference.
If they have a bad experience, they are not necessarily going to think that one individual was dishonest.
They may simply conclude that all surveyors cannot be trusted. And who would blame them?
That damages the reputation of the entire profession.
The impact on small firms
There is also a commercial aspect to this.
Many small surveying firms rely on local work.
A fake website can target town and county based search terms, appear in local search results, and attract instructions with unrealistically low prices.
Of course, there is a reason they can charge less.
They may not have the same professional costs.
They may not have insurance.
They may not be regulated.
They may not have any meaningful accountability.
Competing with that is difficult.
Trust, but verify
The article suggested that greater transparency is one possible answer, and I think there is a lot to be said for that.
Legitimate surveyors should make it easy for clients to check who they are.
Membership numbers should be easy to find.
Professional registrations should be easy to verify.
People should know who they are instructing and what qualifications that person holds.
Clear complaints procedures and genuine professional histories also help.
Basic due diligence and reporting suspicious websites is worthwhile as well.
Final thoughts
Artificial intelligence is going to make this problem worse before it gets better.
I suspect we will see increasingly sophisticated attempts to impersonate legitimate firms and professionals.
The technology can generate a convincing website.
It can generate a convincing biography.
It can even generate a convincing face.
There is one thing it cannot replicate.
A genuine professional with real qualifications, real experience, and real accountability for the work they produce.
At least, not yet.