Impersonation scam and financial fraud are not new but artificial intelligence (AI) ramp these crimes up to a new high-tech level. In recent years, fraudsters have begun using AI tools – deepfake voice generators, chatbot impersonators, etc. – to make their schemes even more convincing than they were previously. These AI-driven tactics allow scammers to impersonate trusted voices and faces with such realism that any warning signs rely on were defused (ex: odd pauses or poor grammar). The result is a surge of financial losses due to fraud perpetrated with AI, and it happens at every level of financial society from retirees to corporate executives. In 2024, for instance, U.S. banks were alerted to a “fundamental shift in the risk landscape” as deepfake videos and cloned voices begun directly targeting their retail customers and employees at major banking institutions. But the technology may be new, but the fundamental methodology of leveraging human trust and urgency to exploit a monetary gain continues to be fundamentally the same, on both sides, and at all levels.
If you’re concerned about the potential for AI-based scams, you’re in good company. In fact, by developing a better understanding of how these scams are perpetuated, and by being mindful to safeguard yourself, we can help lower your risk exposure. This section aims to inform you about the misuse of AI in financial scams, share recent data and resources from 2023 through 2025, allow you to identify fraud red flags of AI-assisted schemes, and offer actionable steps in protecting your financial interests. The tone is professional and educational; we ask that you take the information and background information seriously, but not become alarmed. Financial scammers have somewhat of a new tool, but with the proper education and precautions, you can stay out in front. If you have already been exposed to a victim of a financial scam, knowing where to seek help in potentially recovering your assets (including crypto scams or trusted crypto recovery) is equally as vital to your recovery as prevention.
How Scammers Are Using AI in Financial Fraud?
AI has emerged as the newest tool in the fraudster’s toolbox. Advanced generative AI programs can generate text, images, audio, and video that look extremely realistic and criminals are using all of these to gain the trust of victims. Here’s how each form of AI technology adds to modern financial fraud:
- AI-Generated Messages and Chatbots
- Fraudsters utilized generative AI to generate perfectly formatted emails, texts, and social media messages without misspellings or awkward phrases that usually raise red flags. AI-generated text is used in phishing and “social engineering” scams to tempt targeted victims, from fake bank emails to romantic scam love letters. Because AI-generated text messages can generate huge oceans of personalized messages quickly, criminals are able to scale more easily against larger audiences at the same time. In fact, it is similar AI chatbots that criminals are deploying at fake customer service or investment websites so they can speak to victims in real time, using similar language and tone as a real customer service representative. By removing human error and interpretation of language, AI chat tools make the fraudster’s outreach much more believable. Victims are often pulled into additional traps – like a crypto recovery scam – where fake companies present themselves as helpers to recover stolen funds, while fraudsters steal more from the victim.
- AI-Generated Images (Deepfake Photos and IDs)
- Another tactic is visual fakery. Scammers can create a lifelike profile picture and even fake identification, such as a driver’s license, passport, or employee ID, with the click of a button using an AI image generator. For instance, an AI image generator can produce a photograph of a fictitious “financial advisor,” or some attractive person that you would be interested in dating, all complete with a real looking face and a reasonable background. These images are then used to develop trust in your online relationship (romance scams), or the scammers use them to impersonate an official or employee. AI can also use a celebrity’s likeness in advertisements – for example, a famous actor “endorsing” an investment – to build credibility for the fraud. Because these photographs are generated synthetically, you can no longer rely on a reverse image search or a hunch that a photo “looks off” – since the fakes are new and painstakingly calibrated to appear legitimate. Victims of these schemes often find themselves in need of legitimate crypto scam recovery specialists to recover their stolen digital assets.
- AI Voice Cloning (Deepfake Audio)
- One of the most frightening advancements is AI-generated voice cloning. If a recording provides just a few seconds of real person’s voice (3 to 20 seconds), modern AI systems can imitates speech very accurately. Fraudsters can make calls to unsuspecting victims pretending to be someone they recognize and trust – a grandchild, friend, CEO, or government official. For example, a group of criminals can use 2 or 3 seconds of audio from someone’s social media video and make a voice clip imitating the tone and accent perfectly. A call is then made to a victim with an urgent and frightening demand – a grandparent might receive a panicked phone call that sounds like their grandson, claiming he is in jail and needs bail money. Banks also report cases of AI “vishing” (voice-phishing) calls from criminals cloning a client’s voice to authorize sending wire transfers for large amounts. Since the caller is a familiar voice that at least sounds right, it is difficult for the client to not act and send money. One law enforcement bulletin received stated that criminals are now routinely using AI audio in both “vishing” calls as well as voicemail messages to impersonate family members or government officials to gain credibility. Once people are victims of advanced scams it leads folks to seek out crypto recovery services.
- AI-Generated Videos (Deepfakes)
- Going one step beyond that, generative AI is also generating deepfake videos that look and sound like real people. Scammers have started to show up in video calls or record video messages while using another person’s face in these schemes. A scammer can impersonate the CEO of a company or a public someone on a video chat, to establish trust. A well-known case in 2024 involved criminals holding a live video meeting with the employee while pretending to be the firm’s CFO and colleagues, and actual AI-cloned voices and faces to approve a fraudulent $25 million transfer. Scammers have also faked “proof of identity videos” for romance scams, or promotional videos where a well-known billionaire was purportedly endorsing a phony investment. The technology is now at such a level that it is possible to create a convincing real time video deepfake of someone in less than an hour, and that was done with publicly available tools. In fact, to paraphrase an old phrase – seeing is no longer believing: AI videos allow criminals to be whoever they want to be to trick you. This is why victims are strongly encouraged at the end of the day to trust the vetted crypto scam recovery firms, instead of falling again for the next crypto recovery scam that disguises as the next help.
The Rising Tide: Recent Examples and Alarming Statistics (2023–2025)
Fraud using AI technologies is not hypothetical — it is being done and is rapidly increasing. Below we are giving some frightening statistics and examples for the years 2023 to 2025, related to the growth of AI-related fraudulent activities and their impact:
Explosive Growth of Deepfake Fraud
Industry analyses indicate that fraud via AI strategies are growing at an unprecedented rate. In North America, reported instances of deepfake fraud increased 1,740% from 2022−2023. (Yes, that’s a seventeen-fold increase). Internationally, an internal data collection effort by a digital identity company reported a ten-fold increase in deepfake fraud from the year 2022 to 2023. Further, this upward trajectory is accelerating: A report released in the first quarter of 2025 indicated that over $200 million in losses attributed to deepfake-enabled crime had been documented. Some estimate that over half of all fraud in 2025 includes some component of AI manipulation. If the current trajectory continues, the global losses from fraud enabled by AI are expected to surpass $40 billion by 2027 (up from about $12 billion in 2023). For victims, understanding their options for safe recovery of cryptocurrency scams is now just as important as trying to prevent the fraud development.
Wave of AI Phishing and Impersonation Scams
After generative AI tools (logos & large language models) were released in late 2022, there was an increase in impersonation scams and phishing attempts acting as the primary crisis. A cybersecurity company remarked about a 1,265% increase observed in physical phishing emails ever after the general population got access to generative AI. The emails created by AI for those purposes had cybercriminals over $2B in physical phishing theft in 2022. More recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission revealed that impersonation scams (some of which have significantly increased due to AI) led to $2.95B in reported losses in 2024. The Identity Theft Resource Center added there was a 148% increase in reports of impersonation scams within a twelve-month timeframe (April 2024 to March 2025) as scammers started creating fake businesses, AI “customer support” agents, and voice clones of actual company representatives to steal individuals’ contract information. To gain a sense of scale, one report stated scammers created 38,000 new scam websites per day in early 2024 using AI. Practically transferred these scams into other industries on a daily basis as they had thousands and thousands of scams online at once. Many consumers fell victim through a second scam, crypto recovery scams, where criminals create fake firms claiming they can recover lost cryptos that they cannot recover, scamming victims again.
High-Profile Scam Incidents
Recently, there have been several cases that show the boldness and reach of AI fraud. In January 2024, criminals used an elaborate deepfake video conference scam to impersonate a Hong Kong subsidiary of engineering company Arup, leveraging AI-generated avatars to impersonate the CFO and other executives on a Zoom call to convince a finance officer to authorize 15 bank transfers and siphon $25.5 million before the offense would be realized. It is one of the largest deepfake heists on record and it set off alarm bells around the world. Corporate impostors have targeted other companies too: fraudsters tried to impersonate Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna on calls using a clone of his voice, including adopting an Italian accent; he was only discovered on a colleague asked a security question the fraud couldn’t answer. A 2023 attack impersonated a CEO of a major advertising firm, and companies like LastPass and Wiz have recently experienced fraudsters using a cloned voice of the CEO in calls trying to get employees to transfer funds. Not even governments are immune: in 2025, U.S. officials said a person impersonating a Cabinet member used AI to mimic that person’s voice while calling other officials, including how far criminals might go.
Everyday Victims: Voice Clones and Fake Identities
It’s not only organizations being impacted- everyday individuals have also fallen prey to AI scams. For instance, in Canada in 2023, there were multiple instances of grandparents receiving phone calls that sounded exactly like their grandchildren pleading to be bailed out of jail. Unfortunately, some of the individuals in these cases were defrauded- a group of voice-related scams in Newfoundland, Canada caused elderly victims to lose over $200,000 combined before the scam was uncovered. In another incident, a grandmother in Saskatchewan was going to withdraw thousands at the bank when a bank manager alerted her to the warning signs of a deepfake voice. Scammers have also crafted entire false personas to gain trust. In 2024, an 82-year-old retiree in the United States was conned using AI-generated videos of Elon Musk promoting a fake cryptocurrency investment- he lost $690,000 of his retirement savings after “Musk” convinced him to invest in a fake platform. This tragic incident highlights how even a tech-savvy person can be fooled when a celebrity’s face and voice are perfectly imitated. These AI scams are gaining steam, and the human cost, whether monetary or emotional (or both), is piling up for all involved, from phony romantic interests to fake financial experts.
Scam Types Diversifying
Artificial intelligence has spawned new kinds of fraud or turbo charged old types of fraud. In the case of crypto investment scams, it has become common to witness AI-generated testimonials from headline businessmen or influencers. For example, the current most common deepfake scheme in 2024–25 was to impersonate a public figure (e.g., Elon Musk or a popular financial host on television) to promote fraudulent investments, which has reportedly resulted in nearly $401 million in reported losses to date. Romance scams have also taken a leap forward: security researchers discovered an AI toolkit named “LoveGPT” that can automate catfishing across at least thirteen dating apps. LoveGPT creates fake profiles (with AI-generated photos), overcomes CAPTCHA tests, chats with victims with AI-generated responses, and even sets up video calls during which a thief can use deepfake facial technology and fraudulent means to carry out ongoing or long-sale scams without ever disclosing their actual identity. This puts the potential for scam operations to run at scale, and covered across several different markets, (finance, dating, e commerce, etc.) incredibly efficient and frightening. Victims don’t just fall for fraud, but may very well fall victim two times: once for the scam, and another time for the crypto recovery scam. Proving why it is essential to use vetted crypto recovery services versus “free help”.
Beneath these statistics and stories, one theme is evident: AI has lowered the fraud barrier. Tools and techniques needing Hollywood-level resources can now be assembled by a small group of criminals with a minimal budget and some technical ability. For example, highly realistic voice cloning is available commercially, and even open-source, at very little cost. One report cited dark-web “fraud kits” that use AI tools selling for as little as $20. Thus, the pool of scammers and attacks has greatly increased. We are also entering a new frontier whereby scammers do not have to hack into your accounts or to stole your data – they can simply con a voice (or a face) you trust. That’s why it’s more important than ever to promote awareness and safe recovery channels for crypto scams.
Common AI-Enhanced Scam Types to Watch For
While new schemes continue to come into existence, nearly all forms of AI-enabled scams can be placed within a few broad categories. Here follows a schematic listing of the main types of AI-related scams, together with the associated tactics:
AI Voice Cloning Scams (Telephone Impersonation)
Scammers use AI-generated calls or voice mails and pretend to be someone you know or someone in authority. One common tactic is the “family emergency” call. For instance, you hear a panicked voice that sounds like your loved one claiming they need money for bail or hospital fees or for some other emergency. Fraudsters have also cloned voices of bank officials or company presidents to approve transactions for fake orders (the “boss impersonation” phone call). One red flag: These calls will usually induce some pressure to act quickly and may also ask that you keep it secret (“Please don’t tell anyone.”) Keep in mind that with the technology we have today, hearing a familiar voice isn’t proof of their identity. When money is requested unexpectedly, always verify using a known phone number or in person, if possible. (In one survey, from 10% of respondents, there was a reported AI clone voice call scam, and 77% of those respondents lost money-showing how effective these voice clones can be.) Once victims realize that money has been stolen from them through these scams, they often look for crypto scam recovery, but they must also be wary of inadvertently falling into a second crypto recovery scam.
Deepfake Video and Image Impersonations
In these scams, criminals utilize an AI-enhanced video of someone else either in real-time, such as a video call, or in recorded form. Executive deepfakes are a troubling form of scam that affects businesses – a scammer will schedule a video meeting and claim to be a company executive (in this case using a real-time deep fake video of that person) to instruct an employee to wire money or share sensitive information. The Arup case (which lost $25 million) is a particularly vivid example of this, while accounts of less severe schemes occur all the time. Another form of the scam is where someone sees a convincing video ad of a celebrity endorsing an investment, or next great investment opportunity, and the celebrity has nothing to do with it. Scammers manipulated the likeness of well-known figures like Elon Musk, Tom Hanks, and others to bolster outlandish crypto or business scams. There have also been reports of romance scammers using deep fake video filters to appear as a beautiful stranger on a chat, keeping the victim convinced the person is real. A red flag: look for subtle visual glitches, perhaps the person has lips that don’t match speech or their eyes/blinking seems unnatural. They may also shy away from personal questions or try to keep video interactions short or scripted.
AI-Generated Fake Websites and Investment Platforms
Another scam involves fully phony websites using content produced by generative or artificial intelligence. These include fake cryptocurrency exchanges, investment websites, and fake banking portals that appear like they are for real companies. When developers clone logos, trade names, and other branding from legitimate companies, it appears to legitimize these scams. The AI text generated helps to make the site look real, as it gives the site professionally worded product descriptions, testimonials, and fake chat support agents that behave like a customer service representative. Some scammers will use an AI generated executive image and fake licenses to make it look like the site is legitimate. Often, people are taken by phishing emails or advertisements (e.g., a deep fake video of a celebrity directing them to a link) that lure unsuspecting victims into these scams. If you do end up on the platform, an AI chatbot may greet you and guide you through a process to create an “investment account”, where everything – the chat, stock prices, and even the “live” customer service supporting the whole operation – is a simulation. Red flag: Unsolicited offers with guaranteed high returns, or “too good to be true” investment opportunities, especially on social media. It is always good practice to verify a financial website is real – double check the address (they often use URLs that look like, sound like, or have shared domains names), research the company to see if it is registered, and sites that pressure you to deposit cryptocurrency are not trustworthy behavior.
AI-Assisted Romance and “Friend” Scams
For a long time, romance scams have taken advantage of people looking for companionship, and AI has given them new tools for emotionally exploiting a victim. AI chatbots can offer whether thanks to 24/7 flattery or affectionate “conversation”, they can make a victim feel actually cared for. Scammers can easily create attractive, fake personas by generating profile pictures (of people who do not actually exist) and fake social media posts to seem real. They can even use apps such as “LoveGPT” to provide automated responses that seem aligned with the victim’s interests or language. Over a period of weeks or months, a scammer will build trust, sometimes even having the obligatory “video meeting”, although they might present a deep fake face and/or previously record video meeting while under some pretext. Eventually, the ask comes: money for a “medical emergency”, to help with a “medical bill”, or in some cases, and somewhat expectedly, money for “travel expenses” so that the sub-con artist can finally meet in person. Red flag: if an online partner never has time to meet in person or a video call has glitchy moments when showing their face. Be very careful if your “friend” or romantic interest starts asking you for money, cryptocurrency, or a gift card for any reason. A true partner will never pressure you to permit your use of funds or secrecy of such capital. Always keep a healthy level of skepticism: unfortunately, with AI, a scam-artist can post “relatable” thoughts and comments and to seem like a normal partner.
Synthetic Identities and Verification Scams
This is a somewhat more technical category, but worth mentioning. Here, fraudsters are using AI to create identities to get past security checks. For example, fraudsters can use AI to generate a realistic photo ID with a fake person’s face, and then use AI to deepfake a live video feed to match that photo ID for “liveness” verification checks. This technique is used to open up bank accounts or even apply for a loan in the identity of a stolen person, in most cases effectively bypassing selfie verification steps. Scammers also create synthetic customers to get past know-your-customer (KYC) hurdles using AI-deepfake video calls. Even though this is not taking place on the consumer end, it is important to consider that much fraud is AI impersonating you – for example, an AI deepfake could likely gain access to your bank account by fooling your bank’s voice recognition and identification process (a reporter successfully duped his own bank’s voice ID system on its true user in 2023). Red flag: As a consumer, as a simple cautionary step, would be to watch for any notice of accounts being opened in your name or some other verification issue. While not in and of itself reliable evidence, it could very well be someone is attempting AI-assisted identity fraud. Always protect your accounts with strong unique password and where possible, use two-factor authentication to secure everything – that can make impersonation much more difficult and frustrating for fraudsters.
Red Flags: How to Identify an AI-Powered Scam
The con could be very convincing, but not everything about it is perfect. Many of them retain the classic trait that can be called the “off feel.” Be alert to the red flags and behavioral entities that would help you recognize a scam before it snags you. These things are to be watched for that may tell you whether an email, call, or video is fraudulent and AI generated.
- Urgent or Unusual Requests for Money: Almost all scams – AI or not – seek to create a sense of urgency. Be careful with any message or call that pushes you to do something immediately, especially if a money transfer, cryptocurrency payment, or gift card codes are being requested. AI Scammers will often impersonate a loved one or someone with authority and claim a crisis (“I need bail right now” or “This investment will disappear today!”). If the request comes without following normal practices (for example, a”CEO is asking an employee to send money covertly) or just feels out of the blue, take that as a giant red flag.
- New Dates or Strange Details: If you are being contacted from an unusual phone number, email, or social media profile claiming to be a person you know or a company you work with, be suspect. AI scammers often spoof caller ID or use fake profiles that are close to impersonating. Pay attention to the spelling of emails and social media handles – are there extra letters or slight spelling errors? If a friend or family member suddenly messaged you on a completely new number or account with requests for assistance, simply pause and verify you are speaking to the same person. Sometimes it takes one phone call to the known contact to get everything sorted out.
- Audio/Video Anomalies: Pay attention to your instincts – sometimes the tech goes haywire. When you’re on a voice call there might be an unusual flat or robotic tone, strange pauses in speech, or perhaps an echo that didn’t exist before. Early deepfake voices might seem to come from an entirely monotone cadence or some other odd mispronunciation or unnatural syllabic emphasis. When watching a video deepfake, look for inconsistencies in the face – for example, the person does not blink, or their facial expressions and the movements of their mouth are not quite lined up with what they are saying. Distorted or “blurry” edges around the face or some kind of glitch when the person moves their head might signal a fake. If you are on a video call and you notice that the voice of the speaker is a little out of sync with their lips or that there is some odd shaping or shadowing on their face, don’t ignore it. Scammers know their targets might dismiss signs of potential tech issues, when they might instead be signs of AI modifications.
- Hesitates to Verify or Meet in Person: An authentic individual will likely not push back if you suggest verifying through another channel (“Let me call you back on your official number.” or “Can we meet tomorrow to discuss this?”) If the person calling or emailing pressures you to stay on that same call, and won’t let you hang up to verify, that’s trouble. Also, in an online relationship, if your new friend always has an excuse for not having video chats or meeting in person, they may be hiding behind AI. You can test suspicious situations by being random — deepfakes or voice clones often feature fraudsters that can’t deal with questions you randomly asked. For example, one fraudster pretending to be an executive was busted when a colleague asked him a question only the real executive would know — the deepfake could not answer, and the call ended. If someone is pretending to be your loved one and does not know the answers to simple questions about family members or refuses a simple question (like to send you a photo of themselves doing a simple action), this is a big red flag!
- “Something Just Feels Off”: Ultimately, you’re right to trust your gut. AI-generated content can be tremendously convincing, but after the fact, victims often report that they had a nagging sense that something wasn’t right– the email wording was just a little too generic, or the “friend” on the phone was a bit too formal. Scams use our emotions, so if you notice you are feeling panicked or rushed by a message, do the scammed a favor and slow down to think. Scammers trust you are too distracted by fear or excitement to consider inconsistencies in their scam. Take a moment to fact-check before you act; it is worth it to stop a potential costly mistake.
To sum up: slow down and verify. No legitimate authority will mind you taking steps to verify that they are who they say they are. Reliable authorities like your bank or relative will understand and appreciate you taking caution. Scammers, however, want you to act quickly and not think it through. Simply recognizing pressure for what it is can stop an AI scam in its tracks.