While this article focuses on the elderly, every American is at risk of being taken advantage of. We should all be vigilant, knowing how to spot these scams and how to dispute charges on our cards. Above all else, we should all be asking God for wisdom, which He gives liberally and without reproach (see James 1:5).

From Fox News. Older Americans reportedly lost $1.6 billion to fraud in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and many of the scams utilized AI technology to clone the voices of people they knew and other AI-generated ploys.

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During a Thursday committee hearing on AI scams in the Senate, committee chairman Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., published the group’s annual fraud book highlighting the top scams last year. It found that from January 2020 to June 2021, the FBI found “individuals reportedly lost $13 million to grandparent and person-in-need scams.”

An estimated $1.1 billion was lost due to cryptocurrency fraud in 2022, according to the FBI.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, also a member of the committee, said the figure in total losses is “almost surely an underestimate,” since it does not factor in the instances of victims who don’t report scams due to embarrassment.

Casey said in a statement that “federal action” is needed to put up guardrails to protect consumers from AI-generated scams. There are currently very little regulations on AI capacities, which witnesses urged lawmakers to crack down on through legislation. …

The top 10 categories of scams reported in the fraud book were financial impersonation and fraud, robocalls, computer scams, catfishing on dating profiles, identity theft and others.

The most prominent scams used AI technology to mimic people’s voices who then make calls to the victims, family members or loved ones, asking for money. Several testimonies from witnesses in the hearing said they received calls that sounded exactly like their loved one was in danger, was injured or was being held hostage. …

One older couple, featured in a video testimony in the hearing, received a call from who they thought was their daughter. She sounded distressed and asked for help.

“My daughter was, she was crying on the phone, profusely crying and saying, ‘mom, mom, mom,’ and of course my wife was saying, ‘LeAnn, LeAnn, what is the matter?’, and she repeated it again, ‘mom, mom, mom’ and it sounded exactly like her,” Terry Holtzapple, one of the victims, said. …

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(Excerpt from Fox News. Photo Credit: Emil Kalibradov on Unsplash)