New Age Scamming

We are now entering a new age, the age of AI. More and more AI is being implemented or is close to being implemented into everything. Just a few years ago we witnessed the AI boom, similar to the .com boom (which I have mentioned in one of my other blogs) of the mid to late 90s that gave rise to many companies we know today, like Microsoft, iTunes, and Yahoo. I, like many others, have seen how AI has been used to cheat on tests and write essays in high school and college. This problem has become such a nuisance, schools have had to put policies in place to try to combat the growing problem (Hasanein and Sobaih). But the more serious end of the rope is AI being used in online scams. It is a fast growing problem–not just in the United States but around the world–that needs to be addressed.

Getting back to the boom, many people and businesses are finding ways to use AI in their company structure or personal use. For example, the franchise 7-Eleven has let one of their convenience stores in Taiwan be run completely by AI, no employees. The store has been nicknamed “X-STORE 7”. There are cameras that dot the ceiling all over the store, and to make final purchases there is a self-checkout register.

To find where AI is being used as a scam and fought against, I have found several sources both in videos and articles. I have collected from many news outlets from different countries around the world, with some outside sources here as well. As I feel getting someone’s thoughts outside of the big media machines is never a bad idea.

In any new age with gadgets and gizmos there comes a dark side along with it. In the last few years after the boom, there has been a massive increase in scammers using AI in their schemes. A couple reports from The News&Observer (formerly known as The Sentinel) and bank JP Morgan stated that there was a 704% increase (Otman) and continued its growth by a further 33% after 2023 (Chase), which has caused crushing losses for victims of AI scams. Going back a bit, scams have been around long before AI was even a concept. You have your good old fashioned snake oil salesman or the fake charity asking for money on the side of the road. Then you receive that random email from your bank saying you forgot to make a payment for something and need to click a link and fix it or you will be penalized. Bad people usually find ways to use new technology as a means to improve their ability to create and execute the perfect scam.

With the invention of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, scammers began developing and finding ways to use it for criminal activity. With the new-found abilities of the web, scammers no longer had to be face to face with the person they are trying to scam; they could be hundreds or thousands of miles away in India or China (these places have become hubs for many online scammers). They just need you to click on a few well designed and hidden links inside websites that then allow them to access your personal information and steal everything. These include scammers listing either a product or a pet for sale for low prices. People think they're getting a good deal and then get something that is completely different from the pictures, and in the pet case, scammers reuse pictures of pets online and then post for sale ads across the internet and wait. Then when people are hooked into getting a new pet they are tricked into paying up front in the realm of thousands of dollars and then they get nothing. (“Securly - Geolocation Sharing”; “Fake Breeders Are Scamming People into Buying Puppies That Don’t Exist”)

(The Desperation of India’s Scammers, 2018)

But that is all child’s play compared to what scammers are using now: the power of AI. Though as I have mentioned, scams have been a large problem before AI, but many regular people could spot these scams and stay away or pull out. Now scammers are arming themselves with AI to create false product advertisements that are beginning to be posted on many trusted websites or apps like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Amazon. These products are hyped up with the help of AI making it seem like they are being used in the field with great success. Even in most cases the narration of videos on YouTube and TikTok are AI generated and have that robotic like sound in its voice. The voice mentioned is nicknamed AI Adam (listen below). During the ad the item is characterized as the best and is shown to perform well in whatever area it pertains to. In reality these products are nothing like what they showed and the unsuspecting consumer pays the price with their wallet. The people that once could see through the lies and scammers’ games are now falling for scams like never before, due to this.

Not even the big bad corporations are safe from scammers. There have been cases of corporations falling for deepfakes, a type of phishing scam (see the example below that has been used during the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war). Scammers will look for and use a collection of recordings of people that could be found on the web. Then they take these videos/recordings and insert them all into an AI software that then can recreate the person's voice. Once the fake voice is created it can be put to work. In an article from The News & Observer it was stated that “In 2021, a business lost $35 million due to a successful impersonation fraud that utilized deepfake technology while in 2019, deep voice technology allowed scammers to steal $243,000 from a British company while posing as a CEO” (Otman). Then for the common people, scammers will often use the voices of loved ones or people they know to get them to send them money or gift card codes as asking for codes is a common practice. In both scam techniques, there are always ways to combat the ever changing world of scam artists. Most agree that people should stay up to date with how scams are operating though either news or the National Consumers League's Fraud Center, and National Cyber Security Alliance. Both have detailed sections regarding all types of scams that are implemented in today’s world. While people may not always have the patience to read meaty sections like these, reading them could mean the difference later between you having your information stolen or not. By staying in the know, people will understand what to look for even with the added problem of AI. If you receive phone calls from people asking for money, even from people you know, always ask questions and be sure it’s your friend or family member on the other end of the line. Combatting scammers sounds complicated, but it’s not, it just starts with the simple step of becoming aware of what not to click.

The lid really opened for AI between 2021 and 2022 (Wikipedia, 2024). People started to take notice of its potential, and as I’ve pointed out, it didn’t come without its costs. Along with the rise of Chat-GPT that specializes in writing prompts, Stable Diffusion and DeepFaceLab have cut their teeth on the aforementioned AI deepfake technology. Compared to other scamming tactics, deepfaking a person’s face can b

e extremely hard to notice unless you know what to look for. AI has also gained the ability to not just deepfake a person’s face, but also deepfake an entire body and a human’s movements. Scammers will combine these realistic movements with human-like speech. AIs that specialize in this field include websites/apps like ElevenLabs and Noiz.ai.

I myself have been bombarded with deepfake ads on YouTube. While YouTube has improved their filtering and security of deepfake ads as of late, many still get through. Most of the time these involve someone like Elon Musk saying he’s willing to give away millions of dollars, and all you need to do is click a link. While these scammers use actual videos of Musk, if you look closely, the words aren’t matching Musk’s mouth movements. Thankfully this false ad is one I no longer see on YouTube. Another example of one of these ads was/is the realistic AI puppy,(Pleasant Green, 2025) which I still see from time to time. In the video there are multiple sections where you as the viewer see an employee hand making said robot puppies. Though if you rewatch it, you can clearly see those distinct overlays of an AI generated person, which means it’s all fake. Most people fall for this scam because they trust YouTube wouldn’t allow scams like these to be sponsored on their platform.

It is important, especially now, to be vigilant about anything you watch or hear. Make sure the content is real and has bones to it. A strategy people use to see if something is a scam or AI-generated is to do research on the website being advertised. Then search the product itself to see if other people have purchased it and gotten what they paid for. If reviews for this product seem too good to be true, try to find someone who has made a video review of the product to see if it’s as advertised. An example of someone who has made such a video can be seen here.

I hope this was helpful in identifying ways to combat false, AI-generated ads or products by scammers. There are some you can tell by simply looking with a detective’s eye, but others are sophisticated and you are more likely to fall for it. It is more important than ever for people to do their own product research so they know they’re getting what they want to pay for–because once you press that purchase button, there’s no going back. Do not waste your hard-earned money. While it is painstaking to do this kind of product research even on sponsored company ads, it is essential to always know where you’re sending your money. As we move further into the age of AI, it will most likely keep progressing, and with this progression, scammers will continue to implement the next advances into their scams. It is a scary thought that soon AI will be able to perfectly mimic humans and their speech in these ads. While this enters my mind from time to time, I am certain that if this comes to be, there will be counter measures to combat the scammers.

Pleasant Green. (2025a, June 12). Don’t Buy AI Puppies. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-inLMjInn0

Pleasant Green. (2025b, July 22). Don’t Trust AI Generated Lawyers. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvuL7qRAMZw

HomeBoarding. (2024, September). How to use the Adam Voice in #capcut #ai 🔥 (Easy Guide). Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/D5hQNFHTRXk

Otman, P. (2025, November 12). The new face of fraud. How AI is changing the game. Raleigh News & Observer; Raleigh News & Observer. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article312889907.html

The desperation of India’s scammers. (2018, January 13). RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/up-this-way/audio/2018628439/the-desperation-of-india-s-scammers

What Is AI Revolution And Why Does It Matter To Your Business? - WIZ.AI. (2024, January 4). WIZ.AI. https://www.wiz.ai/what-is-ai-revolution-and-why-does-it-matter-to-your-business/

Hall, B. (2025, January 16). AI-driven cybercrime is growing, here’s how to stop it. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/how-ai-driven-fraud-challenges-the-global-economy-and-ways-to-combat-it/

Wikipedia. (2024b, January 6). AI boom. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_boom

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, March 21). Dot-com bubble. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble