Fraudulent Russell & Bromley site promoted in ChatGPT search results
Cloned sites imitating shoe brand Russell & Bromley and home furnishing retailer Dunelm have appeared in search results on the popular AI platform ChatGPT, according to reports by Ask Silver, a scam-checking service.
Anna Jones, Founder Associate at Ask Silver, told The Guardian that it is possible that the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT have been "poisoned", meaning that malicious content has been integrated into the information pool that the AI draws from.
She added that, in the case of Russell & Bromley, fraudsters may have taken advantage of the fact that the retailer's official website was taken down after it entered administration in January 2026.
Russell & Bromley has since been acquired by NEXT in a pre-pack deal for £2.5 million, with a further £1.3 million paid for stock. The brand no longer operates a standalone website, with its official retail presence now sitting within the NEXT website. Consumers searching for the name on ChatGPT, however, might not know that.
Ask Silver identified therussellbromleyofficial, russellandbromleylondon, russellbromleyonlineuk and russell-and-bromley as some of the names of the fake sites.
A quick search on ChatGPT for the most popular Russell & Bromley shoe styles by TheIndustry.fashion revealed yet another fake website - russellbromleyservices.com - which proclaimed a steep "final goodbye" 80% discount on all styles, with leather loafers priced at £50 and a cross-body bag reduced to £39 from £195.
At first glance, the website looked legitimate, yet customers who order from it will never receive the items they purchased.
Concerningly, the fraudulent website also includes a small box at the bottom right corner claiming that the website is a "trusted source" and is "certified secured".
NEXT told The Guardian that it was “aware of the situation” and had been working to have the sites closed down.
A spokesperson for ChatGPT added that it had removed the fraudulent websites from its search index. TheIndustry.fashion has reported the fake website it found in its own research to OpenAI.
