Help Protect Your Family from AI-Powered Scams

Over the past few months, we've heard growing concerns from clients about AI-driven fraud, and frankly, we're seeing alarming examples in the news almost weekly. While we're not cybersecurity professionals, we feel it's important to share what we're learning about this evolving threat and some practical steps you can take to help protect yourself and your family.

This isn't traditional identity theft anymore. The technology criminals are using has become sophisticated enough that even careful, savvy people are falling victim to scams that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.¹

The Problem Is Growing Fast

The numbers tell a concerning story:

• Consumers lost more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024—a 25 percent increase over 2023.²
  
  
• Impersonation scams surged 148 percent in 2024, overtaking every other form of identity crime.³
  
  
• Global deepfake fraud rose 700 percent in Q1 2025 compared to the same period the previous year.⁴
  
  
• Synthetic identity document fraud jumped 378 percent in the same timeframe.⁴
  
  

What's changed is that AI has made fraud cheaper, faster, and far more convincing. Criminals can now create realistic fake emails, websites, documents, voices, and even video calls—often indistinguishable from authentic ones.⁵

How AI Fraud Actually Works

Criminals are using AI tools that are inexpensive and easily accessible to:

• Clone voices from just 3 seconds of audio with 85 percent accuracy.⁶
  
  
• Generate fake images and documents that look completely authentic.
  
  
• Create deepfake videos of public figures, business leaders, or even family members.
  
  
• Write perfectly worded phishing emails that eliminate the spelling and grammar errors that used to give scams away.⁵
  
  

The emotional realism of these attacks, especially voice cloning, makes them particularly dangerous.

A Real-World Example

The Wall Street Journal reported a chilling case in April 2025: A Colorado woman received a panicked call from someone who sounded exactly like her adult daughter. The voice claimed she'd been abducted and demanded $2,000. The mother, convinced by the perfect voice match, wired the money immediately. Her daughter had actually been home the entire time—the voice had been cloned from short online clips.⁶

This isn't an isolated incident. These scams are happening with increasing frequency, and they're remarkably effective because they exploit our natural instinct to help loved ones in distress.

Scammers harvest publicly available information from social media, business profiles, and news articles to craft highly personalized attacks that can fool even sophisticated individuals.⁷

Practical Steps You Can Take

While the threat is real, there are ways to help protect yourself. More than 83 percent of Americans say they are worried about AI-powered scams,⁸ but awareness and simple precautions can manage your risk:

1. Establish a Family Code Word: Create a shared word or phrase to use in emergencies or financial requests. If someone calls claiming to be a family member in distress, ask for the code word. This simple step can defeat voice-cloning schemes.⁵
   
   
2. Verify Before You Act: For any urgent request involving money or sensitive information, hang up and call back using a verified number. Treat any demand for immediate payment with extreme caution, no matter how convincing the caller sounds.⁵
   
   
3. Limit Your Digital Footprint: Review your social media privacy settings and manage what you share publicly—especially videos and voice recordings that could be used to clone your voice or create deepfakes. Avoid posting recognizable backgrounds or location details.⁵
   
   
4. Be Suspicious of Urgency: Scammers exploit fear and time pressure. Even when a request seems dire, take time to verify. Real emergencies can wait 60 seconds while you confirm identity.⁹
   
   
5. Use Multifactor Authentication: Strengthen key accounts (email, banking, investment accounts) with an additional verification step. Consider using a password manager and creating long, complex passphrases instead of short, easy-to-guess passwords.¹⁰
   
   
6. Trust Your Instincts: If something feels off during a video call, test it. Ask the person to wave, turn on a light, or perform some other spontaneous action. Glitches or unnatural delays can expose deepfakes.⁹
   
   
7. Protect Yourself While Traveling: Avoid accessing financial accounts on public Wi-Fi in airports or hotels. Use a VPN when traveling and back up your data before trips.¹⁰
   
   
8. Consider Freezing Your Credit: Request a free credit freeze from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to block unauthorized new accounts. This doesn't affect your credit score and can prevent synthetic identity theft.¹¹
   
   
9. Getting More Help: Some clients engage cybersecurity specialists to monitor digital exposure, conduct security assessments, and train household staff. This may be worth considering if your family has public visibility.¹⁰
   
   

The Bottom Line

AI has transformed the way fraud occurs, but the fundamentals of prevention remain the same: awareness, skepticism, and verification. Even sophisticated scams rely on triggering an emotional reaction. Slowing down, asking questions, and following basic security protocols can neutralize most of these schemes before they succeed.

We encourage you to have conversations with your family, especially elderly parents and young adult children, about these risks. Discussing security protocols now can help prevent losses later.

^{1. Biometric Update, July 14, 2025} 

^{2. Federal Trade Commission, March 10, 2025}

^{3. CBS News, June 25, 2025} 

^{4. Forbes, October 17, 2025}

^{5. Federal Bureau of Investigation, December 3, 2024} 

^{6. Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2025}

^{7. Financial Times, March 22, 2024}

^{8. Abrigo, June 24, 2025}

^{9. Forbes, December 16, 2024}

^{10. RBC Wealth Management, October 2025}

^{11. U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 2024}