Online fraud has evolved in the era of AI. Here’s what to do.

ByTech Word News

Email full of typos. A customer service agent with a thick accent. Blurry Craigslist photo.

These used to be telltale signs of internet scams. But today, thanks to generative artificial intelligence, those red flags have mostly disappeared. Low-cost chatbots, image generators, and voice cloning tools make it easy for criminals to create perfect copy, create seemingly legitimate websites, and even replicate identities.

Internet AI scams have become so convincing that I admit I almost fell for one. While mindlessly scrolling through TikTok videos, I came across an ad for a pair of Hoka sneakers marked 80 percent off. When I tapped it, a web page loaded that looked like an authentic sale for a shoe brand.

But after I added the shoes to my shopping cart, my Spidey sense went off. A quick web search revealed that users on Reddit have been scammed by this site; Hoka even published a warning of the rise of fake online stores impersonate your brand.

These lookalike websites are one of several AI-powered internet scams that have been on the rise recently, security experts say. The FBI announced last month that cybercriminals robbed Americans of nearly $21 billion last year, while $893 million in AI-related losses

As artificial intelligence makes it easier to create websites and digital avatars, we may need to rethink our approach to online fraud protection.

“Instead of looking for indicators of what’s bad, you now have to verify whether it’s good,” said Mark Beare, CEO of Internet security company Malwarebytes. “It’s not a Nigerian prince anymore. It’s a similar site for REI or eBay or any of those well-known, reputable brands.”

Fraudulent ads are so rampant that legal complaints against social media giant Meta are mounting. Last month, the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit advocacy group, filed a complaint accuses Meta of misleading users about its anti-fraud efforts. The complaint cited examples including fraudulent ads for baby gear and free phones. California Santa Clara County filed a similar lawsuit against Meta this month.

as an answer Meta said it removed 159 million fraudulent ads last year and took down nearly 11 million Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with known fraud producers. It added that it is investing in new technology to fight fraud.

A TikTok spokeswoman said the company has banned deceptive practices and misleading content in ads and that attempts to cheat users are not allowed on the platform. She added that in the fourth quarter of 2025, 97 percent of the infringing spam that TikTok removed was removed before users reported it.

In addition to fake deals, fraudsters use AI to pretend to be someone close to their victim, including family members and old flames. In other words, AI has allowed criminals to tailor their attacks to be more personal than ever before.

Here’s what you should know about the most common AI scams and what to do.

Everyone knows a text message from an unknown number that says something along the lines of “It’s been a while. How are you?” Communication with the sender could end in a phone conversation and the scammer asking for money. Today, that conversation is likely to move to a video call as fraudsters have discovered they can use AI tools that digitally transform them to someone else.

“It’s very easy and very cheap to do a real-time Zoom call with a full body swap and a voice change in a way that’s completely realistic,” said Andrew Yoon, a researcher at CivAI, a nonprofit that teaches people about the possibilities of artificial intelligence.

This scheme can take different forms depending on the interests and weaknesses of the victim. A lonely man can be tricked into believing that an attractive woman from his past hopes to reconnect. A job seeker could be tricked by a fake AI interviewer into doing work for a fake company.

And since phone numbers can be easily spoofed and the names and contact information of our relatives publicly available online, scams can be much more personal. A mother could receive a fraudulent text message from her son’s phone number and possibly start a video call with his AI simulation where the impersonator asks for money.

Mr. Yoon suggested an antidote to low-tech: Talk to family members, especially older relatives who aren’t tech-savvy, to discuss the possibility of a copycat calling them. Create a secret safe word that can be used to test if someone is real whenever in doubt.

Since the advent of instant video generator apps like OpenAI’s Sora, social media has been flooded with AI-generated silliness. Fake videos of Hollywood celebrities and high-profile business executives are widespread, as many of their images and videos are available on the web to help AI models create near-perfect imitations.

Some scammers have tried to exploit celebrities by using their star status to sell non-existent products. For example, chef Gordon Ramsay’s in-depth videos have been making the rounds on social media over the past few years promoting dish giveaways; victims who thought they were paying a small postage fee for free pans gave their credit card numbers to criminals.

Abusers have also created deeply fake videos of Virgin Group founder Richard Branson to lure his fans into fake investments. It happened so often that he posted a video on Instagram educating his followers how to detect these types of scams.

Mr Branson’s advice was spot on. Only trust information from official sources – for example, in the case of Mr Branson, the website published on Virgin.com. Blue ticks on social media sites are not a reliable indicator that people are who they say they are, so don’t let them lure you into shady get-rich-quick schemes.

Ads that direct you to fraudulent AI-generated sites, like the sneaker store that almost fooled me, are rife on social media. Ads can be directly relevant to your personal interests – for example, if you come across a fake shop selling a bicycle.

That’s because scammers pay for ad space on TikTok and Instagram to take advantage of the same tools real marketers use to target ads to people with relevant interests, Malwarebytes’ Mr. Beare said. Criminals can afford to spend those dollars on targeted advertising because—unlike real brands—they have no product to ship.

There are ways to quickly tell if an online store pretending to be a brand is fake. An easy method is to Google the store’s URL and see what people are saying about it on sites like Reddit.

You can also enlist the help of an AI chatbot for more thorough fraud detection. Malwarebytes recently partnered with OpenAI and Anthropic to connect its free fraud detection app with chatbots ChatGPT and Claude. You can enter a web address and screenshots into the chatbots and ask Malwarebytes to analyze whether the page is legitimate.

If that sounds like too much work, there’s one age-old conventional wisdom that still holds true in the age of artificial intelligence: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.