Don’t Get Tricked By This Fake AI Spam Campaign

As helpful as AI tools are, not all of them are legit. There are a lot of scammy AI tools on the internet that you should avoid, along with fake AI spam campaigns that promote these tools everywhere on the internet.

What Is Muah.AI?

Muah.AI is a “companion AI” app that lets you create and customize your character to text or call them with no NSFW filters whatsoever. All content on the platform is AI-generated, so users can really take to the skies with their imagination here.

From what I could gather on the Muah AI subreddit, the service works. It’s not a complete scam, but the platform does seem to have problems with features not working as intended and people being unable to cancel their subscriptions. The customer support also isn’t very helpful, with calls and emails going unanswered for days, if answered at all.

That’s a pattern you’ll see with pretty much every AI companion app. While the app or service might offer the features they advertise, they’ll almost always be locked behind expensive paywalls, with the entire service designed around making you spend as much money as possible. There’s no guarantee that they’ll work once you’ve paid either.

What put Muah.AI on our shady services radar is the fact that there’s a massive AI bot farm promoting the app and talking good things about it on Reddit, especially in the ChatGPT subreddit. Muah’s spam campaign also uses aged accounts to get around some subreddits’ restrictions, happens to have a rather predictable naming pattern, and heavily uses vote manipulation according to this post on r/ChatGPT. The platform is also banned on the ChatGPT subreddit, and any post mentioning it will be automatically deleted.

The website also has a 100/100 trust score on Scamadvisor and a 3.2 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot. However, these ratings result from Muah’s AI spam campaign because if you read the reviews under these ratings, you’ll quickly find people complaining about the service being a scam or being unable to unsubscribe once after entering their card details for the first payment.

Muah.AI also doesn’t have an app (or one available on the official Android or iOS app stores). You can sign up to use the service via its website or opt to manually download and sideload its Android app, which is almost always a bad idea. This lets the service escape shady and exploitative practices that official app stores often ban.

Muah.AI isn’t the only “companion AI” app out there. Multiple similar apps are scattered around on the internet; some are even on official Android and iOS app stores. We’re not saying that all of them are scammy, but besides Muah.AI, you should also watch out for these two.

Eva AI

Eva AI is a similar app that allows you to talk to AI companions and even go on virtual dates. The apps are available on both the Apple and Android app stores.

However, as one Reddit user pointed out in their honest review of the app on r/EVAAI, you need to spend money to buy “Neurons,” an in-app currency that you can then spend for watching photos the AI models send you. The models are locked behind a subscription, and the entire experience is geared toward making you spend as much money as possible.

Poly AI

Poly AI is also an AI chatbot available as an app on the Android and iOS app stores. I’ve seen the fewest complaints about it, but there are still enough people complaining about the app not working as intended or the subscription not providing much functionality, if any.

How to Protect Yourself Against AI Spam and Bot Farms

Thankfully, protecting yourself against AI spam and bot farms isn’t very difficult. As with most things regarding staying safe online, common sense and a handful of preventive measures are all you need.

1. Do Your Research

The first thing you should do before trying out any shady-looking app or service is a simple web search that’ll save you time, your data, and potentially even money. If an app or service hasn’t worked as intended, you’ll be sure to find reviews or forum posts online with users expressing their dissatisfaction. All it takes is a little bit of time to look around and find reviews.

For example, searching for “is muah ai legit” will bring up scores of the aforementioned Reddit posts where people complain about the AI spam bots writing fake reviews or posts about the app and whether or not you should avoid the app/service.

2. Watch for Promotion Posts

When looking up an app or service, you’ll see good and bad reviews or posts. Beware of fake or promotional posts that are made to lure unsuspecting users to a shady app or service that will scam them for money.

The good thing is, if you read posts, you can quickly determine whether something is promotional, AI-generated, or real. Even small things like grammar, use of proper punctuation, and overly zealous statements about a service that looks shady are enough to indicate that a post may not be real.

3. Read the Reviews

This generally applies to apps as they have a more consolidated marketplace structure whether you’re using Android or iOS. App stores allow real users to quickly leave a review, and scrolling down to the ratings and reviews section a little can easily reveal if people are having problems with an app. You’ll find reviews for most services online as well. It’s just a little hard to tell honest reviews apart from the sea of sponsored or spammy ones.

4. Test It on an Emulator

This is a bit of a stretch, but if you really want to test a particular app, it’s always a good idea to run it on an emulator first. You can try Blustacks for Android or the iOS emulator if you have a MacOS device.

Using an emulator provides a safe, isolated space to run whatever app you’re trying to test on a new device. It also helps you protect your data from shady apps that might try to skim it the first chance they get.

By just keeping a handful of things in mind when looking at a new app or service, you can avoid getting tricked by a fake AI spam campaign and malicious apps that don’t have your best interests at heart. The internet can be a dangerous place, so it’s important for you to watch your step. Go take a walk and talk to your real friends, and I promise you’ll get much better responses than even the most advanced AI models.