{"schema_version":"0.10.0","id":"LR-2026-0602","record_version":1,"title":"Dealership revoked BMW buyback offer, blaming AI chatbot","verification":{"human_verified":false,"method":"automated_gate","auto_verified":true,"score":42.5,"score_breakdown":{"source_authority":12.1,"independent_corroboration":7.0,"implicated_party_confirmed":0.0,"citation_integrity":14.0,"specificity":0.0,"completeness":2.24,"unhedged_language":5.0},"checks":{"schema_valid":true,"every_field_cited":true,"quotes_verbatim":true,"source_fetched":true,"distinct_incident":true,"dates_plausible":true,"sources_agree":true,"source_describes_incident":true,"severe_backed_by_source":true,"record_integrity":true,"eligible":true,"about_this_case":true},"gate_version":"gate-2026-10-18.7","cross_check_model":null,"cross_check_agreement":null,"duplicate_of":null,"verified_by":null,"verified_at":"2026-11-01","extraction_run_id":null,"evidence_level":{"level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change","original_document":null,"reports_total":1,"reports_independent":0,"reports_derivative":0,"developing":false,"disputed":false,"rules_version":"evidence-2026-10-29.1","computed_at":"2026-11-01","history":[{"date":"2026-11-01","from_level":null,"to_level":"preliminary","reason":"Publisher not yet named · subject to change"}]},"sources_hash":"41a84e5e9a6ddbdf9e5bea9961ced86f9d13adb4c034f0b022581a53189137a9"},"system":{"model_name":null,"model_version":null,"developer":"unknown","harness":null,"tools_granted":[],"permissions_scope":null,"autonomy_level":"unknown","guardrails_present":[],"deployment_context":"unknown","tier":null,"lifecycle_stage":null,"integration_type":null,"intended_use":"relay human-generated buy-back offers","safeguard_state":null,"production_intended":null},"event":{"date_occurred":null,"date_disclosed":"2026-06-11","incident_class":"operational_error","failure_class":null,"agent_involved":null,"secondary_failure_classes":[],"trigger":"unknown","duration":null,"detection_method":"unknown","summary":"A BMW Toronto dealership used a text-based AI chatbot, named Quinn, to handle a customer's inquiry about selling his car back to the dealership. Quinn made a firm buy-back offer of $27,162.79. The customer was not told he was dealing with an AI. Shortly afterwards a sales consultant called to revoke the offer, saying Quinn had made it in error, and the customer was told the offer would be at best $20,000. The dealership said a human employee's miscommunication led Quinn to misread the amount owed on the car as the buy-back price. After CBC News contacted the dealership, it reinstated the original offer. The dealership said only human employees will present such offers in future and that it is making changes so customers know when they are talking to AI.","tags":[],"date_detected":null,"near_miss":null,"root_cause":null,"root_cause_detail":null,"failure_class_detail":null,"responsible_party":null,"adversarial_actor":null,"input_provenance":null,"time_to_contain":null,"operations_paused":null,"remediation":null,"precursor_events":null,"control_chain":[{"layer":"L3","party":"deployer","party_name":"BMW Toronto","control_id":"B5","outcome":"missing","reason":null,"quote":"Quinn never revealed its true identity, according to text exchanges examined by CBC News.","source_index":0,"reviewed":false}]},"impact":{"direct_loss_usd":null,"remediation_hours":null,"records_exposed":null,"third_parties_affected_count":null,"severity":"minor","harm_class":[],"affected_description":null,"protected_class_involved":null,"data_categories_exposed":[],"loss_range_usd":null,"reversibility":null,"downstream_exposure_count":null},"evidence":{"sources":[{"url":"https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ai-chatbot-bmw-dealership-9.7230226","publisher":"CBC","date":"2026-06-11","type":"press","title":"Dealership revoked offer to buy back customer's BMW, blaming wayward AI chatbot - CBC","archived_url":null,"attachment":"first_report"}],"per_field_confidence":{"system.intended_use":"C","event.incident_class":"D","impact.severity":"D","event.control_chain":"C","event.summary":"C","system.autonomy_level":"D","system.deployment_context":"D","event.trigger":"D","event.detection_method":"D","context.country":"D","system.developer":"D","event.date_disclosed":"D","context.denominator_available":"D"},"field_citations":{"system.intended_use":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Shadbolt said Quinn was never programmed to independently negotiate contracts, only to relay human-generated buy-back offers."}],"event.incident_class":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Shadbolt said that, due to miscommunication from a human employee, Quinn misinterpreted the amount Giacomelli owed on the car — $27,162.79 — as the amount BMW would pay to buy back the vehicle."}],"impact.severity":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Shadbolt said that, due to miscommunication from a human employee, Quinn misinterpreted the amount Giacomelli owed on the car — $27,162.79 — as the amount BMW would pay to buy back the vehicle."}],"event.control_chain":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Quinn never revealed its true identity, according to text exchanges examined by CBC News."}],"event.summary":[{"source_index":0,"quote":"Later in the same text conversation, Quinn made a firm buy-back offer: $27,162.79."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Quinn never revealed its true identity, according to text exchanges examined by CBC News."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Moments later, Giacomelli said, a BMW Toronto sales consultant called to revoke the offer, explaining that Quinn wasn't a real person, but rather an artificial intelligence chatbot that had made the offer in error."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"He said his shock turned to anger when the dealership informed him the actual buy-back offer would be, at best, $20,000 — a drop of more than $7,000 from what Quinn had promised."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Shadbolt said that, due to miscommunication from a human employee, Quinn misinterpreted the amount Giacomelli owed on the car — $27,162.79 — as the amount BMW would pay to buy back the vehicle."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"After CBC News reached out to BMW Toronto, it reinstated Quinn's original offer of $27,162.79."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Moving forward, he said, only human employees will present customers with such offers."},{"source_index":0,"quote":"Shadbolt also said that BMW Toronto is making changes to ensure customers know when they're interacting with AI."}]},"notes_on_gaps":"The source does not state the date the incident occurred (only that the customer decided 'last month'), the date of disclosure beyond the article date, the detection method, the chatbot's model, developer, harness or autonomy level, whether the chatbot was an autonomous agent (so agent_involved and failure_class are omitted), or any direct monetary loss. Judgements: incident_class set to operational_error and root cause to oversight based on the dealership's human-miscommunication explanation; severity set to minor because the effect was confined to one customer and one dealership; harm_class financial reflects the threatened reduction to $20,000 which the source describes; B1 and B5 marked missing are inferred from the source's statements that no human approval was in place for the offer and that the customer was not told it was AI. The dealership's account is its own explanation and is not independently verified. [case created by the backfill: read by claude-haiku-5-5, backfill-2026-11-01.2, 2026-11-01; not yet reviewed] [2026-11-01: evidence level set: Preliminary (Publisher not yet named · subject to change)]"},"context":{"industry":null,"org_size_band":null,"country":"unknown","denominator_available":false,"denominator":null,"related_incident_ids":[],"systemic_exposure":null,"shared_model_id":null,"upstream_incident_id":null,"incident_evidence":null,"regulatory":null,"coverage":null},"analysis":{"sections":{"timeline":[{"text":"The customer had bought the used car from BMW Toronto.","quote":"After his 2021 BMW required major repairs, Zack Giacomelli decided last month he wanted to sell it back to BMW Toronto — the same dealership from which he bought the used car in 2023.","source_index":0,"when":"2023"},{"text":"Quinn made a firm buy-back offer of $27,162.79.","quote":"Later in the same text conversation, Quinn made a firm buy-back offer: $27,162.79.","source_index":0,"when":null}]},"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"backfill-2026-11-01.2","extracted_at":"2026-11-01","source_urls":["https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ai-chatbot-bmw-dealership-9.7230226"]}}