According to a recent report on fraud and identity theft, nearly 1 in 3 Americans have been scammed in the last year. As scams become more and more sophisticated, people are growing increasingly concerned about the role artificial intelligence (AI) will play in the future of scamming. Additionally, bad actors in businesses can also scam people out of money when they are dishonest about their credentials or abilities or don’t follow through on a contracted promise.
While exposing fraud may seem like a job for an investigative journalist, there are a number of ways an everyday business journalist can report on scams, frauds, and bad business practices to keep their readers well informed. Here are a few ways to do that:
Who falls victim to scams?
The short answer: Anyone. Scammers are not discriminate when it comes to choosing their target. There isn’t necessarily a single age group that is more susceptible to being scammed – different types of scams are more likely to impact different age groups. Younger adults are more likely to report losing money to online shopping scams and bogus cryptocurrency investment opportunities, while older adults are more likely to fall victim to tech support and imposter scams.
Although they aren’t necessarily more likely to be victims, senior citizens are frequently the most lucrative targets for scammers as baby boomers are the “most prosperous generation that’s ever lived with a collective $84 trillion in wealth.”
The future of scamming
As the public becomes more aware of certain scams, scammers change up their methods and become more sophisticated in their approach. In particular, AI has the ability to supercharge scamming techniques. Some of these methods include voice cloning, deepfakes, very convincing phishing schemes, and fake websites.
AI language models and generative AI such as ChatGPT, have made detecting whether something is real or not much more difficult. Research has found that 37% of organizations have already experienced deepfake voice fraud attempts, with the expectation that those attempts will continue to rise as the technology improves.
Unfortunately, the best, and sometimes the only, way to stay on top of new scams is through awareness. That’s where journalists can come in.
Staying on top of the latest scam and fraud research
Data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) show consumers reported over $10 billion in fraud losses in 2023, a 14% increase from 2022. With over 2.6 million consumers reporting fraud to the FTC last year, the most common category of scam were imposter scams.
The FTC has created a number of materials to pass on to others about a variety of common scams and what consumers need to know. To understand why people may fall victim to a scam, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) website includes some of the latest research on the topic.
These scam and fraud numbers do not include the losses people experience every day from businesses that may not have their customers’ best interests in mind. We’ll touch more on that next week.
