scams

Scams are definately getting harder to spot nowadays. That is mainly due to how Artificial intelligence has changed how fraud works by making messages smoother, faces more familiar, and stories more believable.  

According to Chainabuse, a leading reporting platform for malicious crypto activity worldwide, reports of  AI-enabled scams grew 456% between May 2024 and April 2025, compared with the same period the year before.  And that earlier period was already a 78% increase over 2022-2023.  This dramatic  spike wasn't just more scams, but scams supercharged by AI tools that make fraud faster, cheaper, and more believable.  Here is the real staggering news: Americans lost $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024 alone. 

An IRS chief counsel recently issued advice (CCA-2025-11015) that describes five situations in which taxpayers were victimized by scammers.

The FBI has issued a warning to Americans that they should exercise caution when scanning QR codes with their smartphones because cybercriminals tamper with the codes to steal login and financial information.

A QR code—the square barcode that people can scan with their smartphone cameras—can provide quick and convenient access to a website or to a direct payment to an intended recipient.

Businesses have started using QR codes to provide contactless access to services, for instance, enabling access to restaurant menu items on a smartphone that can then be conveniently ordered.  But the more convenient technology tries to make life, the more ways that scammers can find ways to use it.