How polite of the scammer to tell you this! The scary thing is, some people will never know if they were scammed unless the scammer directly tells them that they were scammed. Many youths believe that scams are easy to detect, but the quintessential Indian scam caller has now evolved since the early days of online scamming. Now, no longer will Indians with heavily accented English be calling you. Your parents, your brother, or even your lover may be calling you, begging for you to empty your checking account to help them in whatever situation they are in.
The scamming industry generates billions of dollars every year, in 2024 alone siphoning $47 billion dollars from Americans, a $4 billion increase from 2023 (AARP). With the rise of generative AI, scammers are able to leverage fear upon their victims on an unprecedented level. Generative AI allows scammers to create messages that use the voice of the victim’s relatives, friends, or significant other (CSIS) which not only mask the scammer’s identity, but also makes the scam more convincing. Greg Ball, the chief data officer for TNS communications, stated that only a short three second clip is enough for AI to replicate one’s voice.
FOX 11 Los Angeles reports that phone call scams are now being targeted at parents and the elderly, taking advantage of the love they display towards their children and grandchildren. Scam phone calls will often use a troubling AI-generated message of their loved ones that begs for help, and more often than not, parents and the elderly fall for the trap. According to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2023, consumers lost $11 million dollars to fake voice scams, which shows that these scams are highly effective.
Some AI-generated calls will even respond to your questions, making the scam extremely believable. These types of scams seem completely unavoidable, but there is one way to catch the scammers off balance: have a keyword or fun fact that nobody else knows the answer to. This measure essentially serves as a password against these scams, potentially saving users up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There are many other types of scams as well, such as phishing, which are scams usually sent by email, online shopping scams, which are fake stores with unusually low prices, employment scams, and the list goes on and on.
The internet may seem to be a hostile place where everybody seeks to take your money out of your wallet, but there are some tips to remember to help you avoid scams.
- Is something asking you for very personal information?
- If so, NEVER REPLY. Don’t even speak into the phone. Real phone calls or emails from any institution will never ask you for personal information. For example, phone calls from banks will NEVER ask you to provide your personal details over the phone.
- Is the offer too good to be true?
- Often, we love to fantasize about low prices and good job opportunities, and scammers take advantage of that by providing something that appears to fulfill those fantasies. Be wary of offers that are too good to be true. On the internet, NOTHING IS FREE.
- Is something trying very hard to make you afraid?
- If emails, phone calls, or texts are displaying a very scary situation, most often or not, it’s a scam. The scam is relying on you to lose your rationality to your fear.
- Never open a link from someone whom you do not know
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bnifll3NVs&t=46s https://www.fdic.gov/consumer-resource-center/2021-10/avoiding-scams-and-scammers
Media Savvy Teens 
Leave a comment