The Rise of AI Use in Increasingly Deceptive Scams and Fraud: How to Protect Yourself, Your Loved Ones, and Your Money
Scams are becoming more sophisticated and tougher to spot until it’s too late. With the rise in usage of artificial intelligence (AI), scam warning signs like poor grammar, misspelled words, or an odd email address, now sound more natural and include more personal details about you, your friends, and family.
AI enhances scammer tactics and deceptive methods to exploit people’s emotions. AI allows scammers to use stolen data to successfully steal billions every single year. The Federal Trade Commission reported that in 2025, Americans lost $15.9 billion to fraud and scams. That’s an increase of $3 billion from 2024.
Fraud consists of criminals using your stolen data like identity, banking, and credit card information without your approval or knowledge for their unlawful financial gain.
Scams consist of criminals using manipulation, deception, and fake information to make you voluntarily give them your sensitive personal or financial information, property, financial assets, or money.
The chart below from Fraud.org lays out the Top 10 Scams in 2025, compiled from thousands of complaints received by the organization.
To access the full February 2026 report, which includes the top 10 scam types: contacted via internet, contacted offline, method of contact, method of payment, and consumer age — click here.
According to Old National Bank even as scams evolve many of them still use the same type of psychological tactics:
Impersonation of a trusted business institution or family member.
Urgency manipulation to incite panic and highjack your amygdala (the emotional brain region) to reduce your ability to pause and think rationally.
Many of the deep emotions that scammers exploit include fear, panic, anxiety, greed, hope, and empathy. One of the more recent sophisticated scams uses voice-cloning technology to mimic someone you know. There’s just something so unsettling to me about that. Possibly could have something to do with all the horror movies that feature evil entities mimicking human voices to harm their unsuspecting victims.
According to McAfee, in one instance it only took three seconds of audio to produce a person’s voice clone with an 85% voice match to the original. And the more audio used the better-quality voice match. The audio can easily be sourced from social media content and voicemails. Some scammers will even call a person directly to get them talking and capture a voice recording that way.
The generated voices are made to sound distressed, like they’ve been arrested, kidnapped, in a car wreck, need emergency financial help, or even stuck in a foreign country needing aid.
A Hillsborough County, FL woman answered a phone call from a number that looked like her adult daughter’s number to hear her daughter crying saying she had been arrested. Then a man claiming to be an attorney got on the line requesting $15,000 in bail money for the woman’s daughter. The woman gave the money, but it didn’t stop there. The criminals continued to request money until her grandson stepped in.
5 Biggest Scams in 2026
According to AARP as part of their Trending Scams series here are Five of the Biggest Scams to Watch for in 2026:
Employment Scams: Since more than 1.17 million workers were laid off in 2025, employment scams are targeting desperate job seekers. Scammers post fake jobs online, often making ads that look like reputable companies, to try and obtain your money, trick you into laundering illegal funds, or get your personal information. Scammers will often ask for your social security number or bank information, require upfront training or equipment fees to be paid, or have you receive and reship stolen items from your home address.
Recovery Scams: Criminals retarget victims who lost money, but this time the scammers pose as law enforcement or some sort of agency claiming they can help you recover your losses. The criminals will ask for an upfront fee, some sort of processing or retainer fee and/or request your social security number or financial account information to file complaint information on your behalf and speed up the reimbursement process.
Digital Arrest Scams: This terror-based scam involves scammers posing as law enforcement. The caller threatens their victim with criminal charges saying they’re under criminal investigation, pressuring them to pay fines or some sort of settlement not just for hours but days. They keep you on the phone by transferring you from person to person trying to wear you down. One man in India died from fatal cardiac arrest after enduring almost 70 hours of this.
“Hello pervert” Scams: This is the “I know what you’re doing on your computer, and I am going to tell everyone” scam. Criminals will say they have hacked into your computer and recorded you visiting pornography sites. They will then threaten to share their recordings with everyone on your email contact list if you don’t pay up.
Romance Scams: aka friendship scams, are a subcategory of imposter scams. Scammers build trust over weeks or months trying to create an emotional connection through tactics like love bombing before making financial requests. This scam is exceptionally devastating because not only does the victim suffer the loss of their money and possible damage to their credit, but they also grieve the loss of what they thought was a real loving relationship.
What You Can Do
Here are some practical ways you can protect yourself and your loved ones from this type of psychological warfare and sinister use of advanced technology.
Stay up to date on the latest scams and fraud with these websites:
Remember….
Don’t immediately respond. When you receive an unexpected or urgent request for money or personal information, verify with the organization directly through trusted channels like a confirmed phone number or website.
Always verify the domain name of the website. Look for sneaky
letter substitutions in the domain name known as typosquatting. For example, a “1” for an L or a “0” for the letter OH.
Create a family verification or code word. Call a family meeting and decide on what word, phrase or question everyone knows to request to confirm someone’s identity.
Take protecting your personal information very seriously. Never share user logins, passwords, PIN codes, Social Security numbers, or personal and financial account information through unsolicited and unknown calls, emails, or text messages.
Be highly suspicious of urgency. A request to act immediately is always a major red flag.
Tighten social media privacy settings.
Never open attachments from unsolicited emails.
Searching for a job? CareerOneStop is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.
It all starts with awareness. Stay informed. Once you understand the different tactics in which these criminals are targeting people you can build protective systems to keep you and your loved ones safe.
Stay safe out there!
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading!!!
I hope today you’re met with kindness, especially from yourself.
💚💚💚
References
Budd, K. (2026, April 23). Biggest fraud and scams to watch for in 2026. AARP. https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/biggest-scams-to-watch-for-2026/
Federal Trade Commission. (2026, March 25). FTC testifies before the Joint Economic Committee on agency’s efforts to combat fraud. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/03/ftc-testifies-joint-economic-committee-agencys-efforts-combat-fraud
Hussain, A. (2025, September 17). Retired Hyderabad doctor dies of heart attack after 70-hours of digital arrest scam. India Today. https://www.indiatoday.in/cities/hyderabad/story/hyderabad-retired-doctor-dies-heart-attack-70-hour-digital-arrest-scam-cyber-fraud-2788936-2025-09-17
Kaspersky. (2026, February 16).What is typosquatting? https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-typosquatting
McAfee. (2024, May 15). AI calling—Scammers turn to AI voice cloning tools for a new breed of scam. McAfee Blog. https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/privacy-identity-protection/artificial-imposters-cybercriminals-turn-to-ai-voice-cloning-for-a-new-breed-of-scam/
Old National Bank. (2026, March 2). AI scam alert: How fraudsters are mimicking family voices. https://www.oldnational.com/resources/insights/ai-scam-alert-how-fraudsters-are-mimicking-family-voices/
Old National Bank. (2026, April 2). Why Fraud is Getting Harder to Spot — and What to Watch Out For. https://www.oldnational.com/resources/insights/why-fraud-is-getting-harder-to-spot-and-what-to-watch-out-for/
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