Fake AI apps and copied websites

You open the app store and type ChatGPT. A row of apps comes back with almost the same name and almost the same icon. One of them wants a monthly payment for something that costs nothing.

This lesson is about telling the real tool from the copies. It is also about web addresses that look official and are not.

Why there are so many fake AI apps

These names are famous, so people search for them every day. All that searching is worth money to someone. So people build apps that borrow the name, borrow the icon, and wait for you to arrive.

A copy earns from you in one of three ways. It charges a monthly fee for a tool that is free. It fills your screen with ads. Or it takes data off your phone.

This is not rare. Security researchers keep finding copied AI chat apps in the big app stores. In May 2026 a group of fake apps on the Play Store was found quietly taking payments from users. Between them they had about 73 lakh downloads.

So being fooled by one is not foolishness. The copy is built to look right.

One more thing has changed. Even a real free tool can now show you an advertisement. OpenAI’s own help page said in August 2026 that ads may appear in the free tier in certain countries. An advertisement sitting next to an answer is not the AI’s advice to you. Treat it like a poster on a wall.

Four things to check before you install

Check one is the publisher. Just under the app name, the store prints who made it. For the big tools that line should say OpenAI, or Google LLC, or Anthropic. A famous name with any other publisher is a copy.

Check two is the install count. The real tools have crores of installs. A famous name showing a few thousand installs is not the real one.

Check three is the reviews. Read the one star reviews, not the five star ones. Real reviews describe the app. “Voice does not work on my phone.” “It logged me out.” Paid reviews read like an advertisement instead. “Best app ever, amazing AI, everyone must download.”

Check four is permissions, and it gets its own section below.

Copy these four lines into your notes app:

1. Publisher: does it say OpenAI, Google LLC or Anthropic?
2. Installs: crores, or only a few thousand?
3. Reviews: do the one star reviews describe the app?
4. Permissions: does it want contacts, SMS or call log?

If you are still picking your first tool, which app to start with covers that choice on its own.

What no chat app should ever ask for

A chat app has one job. You type or you speak, and it answers. It has no reason to read your contacts, your SMS messages or your call log.

Your SMS inbox holds every OTP you receive. Your call log shows who you talk to and when. To a stranger, those are worth real money.

If an app asks for anything in the lower half of that table, refuse. If you already said yes, uninstall it today.

Also look at when it asks. A tool that wants a long list of permissions before you have typed a single word is asking too early. On your phone settings you can open any app and read the permissions it already holds. Do that once for every AI app you have.

Type the address yourself, then look at the page

Here is the simplest safe route for a beginner. Do not search the app store at all. Open your browser and type the address of the tool itself.

chatgpt.com
gemini.google.com

Typing an address takes you to one place. Searching a name gives you a list, and the copies sit inside that list.

The browser route is easy on your phone too. In August 2026 the Gemini app download was around 6 MB, while the ChatGPT app was roughly 50 to 90 MB. Those sizes change with every release. In the browser you install nothing at all.

If your data pack is small, using AI without finishing your data goes further into this. If the sign up screen is what stops you, making an account walks through it.

Now the harder half. Typing the address correctly is only half the job. A web address can carry a name you trust and still not show you what you expect.

Here is a real case, checked on 9 August 2026. The web address of a large national digital literacy scheme still opens. It is still registered to the government body that started it. But the page that loads is an online gambling site in another language, full of jackpot and betting words.

Nothing about that address looks wrong from outside. It opens. It shows no error. Only the page itself tells you the truth.

An address is also rented, not owned forever. When nobody renews one, somebody else can take the same address and put anything on it.

So use this rule. Look at the page you landed on, not at the promise in the link. If a page suddenly shows games, betting, spinning prize wheels, or a message that you have won something, close it at once. Press your phone’s back button and leave.

The same rule works on a link inside a WhatsApp forward. The words in the message are not the page. Only the page is the page.

For anything about a government scheme, form or office, go to the department’s own site and check that the address ends in gov.in. Understanding schemes and forms explains where AI helps there and where only the office knows.

Free now, charged every month later

This next trap takes your money quietly.

An offer gives you a paid plan free for a while. Six months, or a year. To claim it, you save a payment method. When the free time ends, the plan renews by itself at its normal monthly price. Nobody calls to remind you.

This has already happened in India. One large AI tool offered its paid plan free for twelve months to users here, starting in November 2025. Claiming it needed a saved payment method. Those twelve months then run out, and the plan charges every month unless somebody cancels it.

Two habits protect you. Before you agree to anything free, find two facts. The date the free period ends, and the price after it. If the screen will not show you both, do not agree.

Second, write that end date on paper the same day. Set a reminder on your phone for a week before it. Four lines in a notebook are enough:

Free plan started on:
Free period ends on:
Price after that:
Cancel before:

Fill it in the same day you agree. A year is long enough to forget, and the charge will not remind you.

You can also see what is charging you right now. In the app store, open your account area and look for a list called subscriptions. Each one shows its next charge date. In your UPI or payments app, look for the list of approved automatic payments. Cancel anything you cannot explain.

Then read your bank messages once a month. A small monthly amount is easy to miss on a busy phone. It is much harder to miss when you look for it on purpose.

If it has already happened

First, uninstall the app. Then open the subscriptions list and cancel there as well. Do both, not one.

If money has left your account, speed decides how much of it can be stopped. Report it the same hour, not the next day.

That website is useful before anything goes wrong too. It carries a searchable list of reported numbers, email addresses, websites and apps. You can check a name there before you trust it. Complaints about crimes against women and children can be filed without giving your name.

Everything here works on a free official route

Nothing in this course needs a paid app. Nothing needs a file somebody sent you in a message. Every tool taught here has a free plan, reached from your browser or from the real app made by the company itself.

So the test is short. If a page, an app or a person says you must pay a stranger to use AI, that alone tells you what it is. Close it and walk away.

Money that never leaves your account is easier than money you try to get back. The truth about earning online with AI covers the other half of this, where the app is real but the offer is not.

The next lesson stays in this module and turns to safety for girls and young women, including where to report when something goes wrong.