Incident: A chatbot invents its owners' qualifications

Module 6 · Incident file · About 30 minutes

What happened

On 3 April 2025 a visitor to the website of a German provider of minimally invasive beauty treatments asked its chatbot a plain question. The bot answered at once, and the answer was false. The case reached the Higher Regional Court of Hamm (Oberlandesgericht Hamm), which gave judgment on 12 May 2026 (case 4 UKl 3/25). Everything below comes from the published judgment, read in German and translated here, unless another source is named.

The bot answered questions "in real time" and offered appointment booking. The company's two managing directors work there as doctors. Neither holds a specialist registration ("Facharzt", a title awarded after recognised further training and an exam) in plastic and aesthetic surgery. That fact was undisputed.

Asked "Are A and B specialists in plastic and aesthetic surgery?", the bot replied: "Yes, A and B are specialists in plastic and aesthetic surgery... Would you like to book an appointment?" Asked which title they held, it said "specialists in aesthetic medicine"; asked again, "specialists in aesthetic treatments". Those two titles do not exist.

A registered consumer association sent a formal warning on 10 April 2025. The company switched the bot off, then reworked it, and on 23 April admitted the false statements, calling them a "regrettable technical oversight". It refused to sign a binding promise not to repeat them, so the association sued. The court granted the injunction in full: fines of up to 250,000 euros for each future breach, 260 euros of warning costs with interest, and the costs of the case. The Wettbewerbszentrale, a German fair-trading body, reported on 3 June 2026 that the judgment was not yet final; the court's database listed it as final when this file fetched it on 12 October 2026. This is a summary of a published judgment, not legal advice.