sure..sure..sure..we know you're too savy to fall for any of this but what about your parents and grandparents? Advances in AI make it even more possible and real.
"Americans reported losing $5.7 billion to investment scams in 2024, according to the Federal Trade Commission"
I suppose if you could run the pitch at final user level thru AI it could work but more than a few of the scams target older people. 75 year old Aunt Ethel who suddenly receives a phone call from nephew little Joey who she hasn't seen in years saying he needs $900 for some emergency out of country. Ethel barely knows how to work her cell phone so unless the AI is incorporated into the software somehow... The link shows a age demographic and what type of fraud. What is surprising are the folks in their 25-40's that should know better being taken and the fact it occurs in investment/advice as the highest category. I mean a guy that cold calls (or emails) you, and then you invest money with him? Although I suspect they could be get rich quick schemes as well. Human nature. If the AI said "possibly fraudulent" but the scam seems too good to be true, what % of those would still take the deal?
Whipsnade: As my dear old grandfather Litvak said (just before they swung the trap), he said
"You can't cheat an honest man. Never give a sucker an even break or smarten up a chump." Larsen E. Whipsnade (W.C.Fields) - "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" - 1939
Those in their 70s reported losing a median of $20,000 to investment scams, compared to the median of $1,551 stolen from victims in their 20s.
The FTC received about the same number of fraud reports in 2024 as in 2023 — 2.6 million — but with far higher losses per victim.
There were around 1.14 million reports of identity theft last year; about 450,000 were related to credit card fraud.
Email was the most common way scammers approached their victims, followed by phone calls and texts. Criminals also favored social media platforms.
Among those who reported losing money to a scam, the most significant losses were through bank transfers (more than $2 billion) and cryptocurrency ($1.42 billion).