I was listening to an episode of “The Howard Stern Show” recently, in which he interviewed a caller whose mother had been scammed by someone with the AI-generated voice of actor Liam Neeson. As the story goes, the fake Liam pretended to be in love with the caller’s mom and needed her to send him money for a project he was working on.
Over a period of time, fake Liam asked for more and more financial support while promising to marry the woman. The caller told Howard that he had tried to tell his mom she was being duped, but to no avail. At first, I thought this was just another Stern comedy bit, but later, there were more callers complaining of similar situations with their moms. Then, last week, I read an article in The Hollywood Reporter that detailed a rash of celebrity scams, including the story of a 73-year-old divorcee who met a fake Kevin Costner on Facebook. Fake Kevin pretended to be in love with this woman and asked her to fund a new film project he was working on. Over a period of several months, the woman made bitcoin deposits to fake Kevin worth over $100,000. Again, I refused to believe that this was a widespread problem, but I was wrong.
THR cited a study by the FBI saying that in 2024 alone, “Americans reported $672 million in losses to confidence and romance scams,” and elderly folks suffered the most, averaging $83,000 per victim. Even worse, those statistics do not include untold thousands of victims like the aforementioned 73-year-old divorcee who were too embarrassed to file a complaint. Other AI and social media-generated scams have included celebrities like Keanu Reeves, Dolly Parton, and Oprah Winfrey, in which victims were fooled into giving the criminals their bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and the passwords to access those accounts.
In addition to the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission also keeps track of scams. Last year, the FTC filed 2.6 million fraud reports, representing a loss of $12.5 billion to victims. Of that amount, social media scams alone accounted for $1.9 billion. But scams also occur through phone calls, emails, texts, and the Internet.
Certainly, celebrity-related romance scams have garnered the most attention of late, but criminals are also making money from a host of other scams, including employment scams which target unemployed folks, have them fill out an application, then use their personal information to rob their bank and credit card accounts.
All of this is disturbing to be sure, but we shouldn’t be surprised because scammers have been around forever.
They are like some sort of prehistoric insect that adapts to new environments in order to thrive. They have evolved by using whatever forum or technology was available to best suit their purpose. In the 19th century, so-called medicine men traveled around the Old West hawking bottles of snake oil, which supposedly cured all ills. Gullible townsfolk bought the concoction only to discover it was just cheap whiskey.
In later years, con men would pose as preachers and hold tent revivals where they fleeced money from patrons hoping to be healed. That evolved into televangelists who asked viewers to purchase a prayer cloth or special holy water if they wanted to be saved. And when email became a common way of communicating, the fraudsters pretended to be someone you know who is stranded overseas and needs money to get home. These indestructible creatures never give up and never stop coming up with new ways to scam us.
To date, some 400 celebrities have signed on to support the “No Fakes Act,” which, if passed by Congress, would protect their likeness and images from AI scams. Unfortunately, though, there’s not much that us common folks can do to outsmart scammers and fraudsters except to stay on guard and stay grounded in reality. A credit card company or bank that you have an account with is never going to call you out of the blue and ask for your information. Kevin Costner is never going to meet you on social media and ask you for money. And no one you know is going to email you and ask you to immediately wire them funds so they can get home from Europe. There is only one foolproof way I know of that can protect you against every kind of scam in the world, and I’ll be glad to share it with you if you mail me a cashier’s check for $2,000 c/o YES! Weekly. Sincerely, fake Jim.
Jim Longworth is the host of Triad Today, airing on Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. on ABC45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 11 a.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15) and streaming on WFMY+.
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