AI-Enhanced Scams Surge, Young People Targeted

AI-driven impersonation, deepfakes and personalized extortion are making scams more believable and scalable, with security firms warning of growing havoc. Consumer Reports and industry research say Gen Z and millennials—particularly younger Americans—are now among the hardest-hit groups, falling for sextortion, fake job/brand-ambassador and too-good-to-be-true retail scams despite good password hygiene. Local authorities cite practical schemes from an Edmonton texting scam demanding payment for phantom tickets to Facebook Live "lucky draw" and "gold bag" e-commerce scams in Singapore that have cost victims six figures (Singapore police earlier reported losses of about S$160,000 since August). Experts note password managers, multi-factor authentication and anti-tracking tools help against breaches but cannot stop people from voluntarily giving information to realistic AI impersonators. Organizations including Mastercard and security specialists advise pausing on urgent requests, verifying sources, enabling transaction alerts and credit monitoring, using tools like ScamShield, blocking suspicious transactions, contacting banks and filing police reports or hotlines to limit losses and aid investigations.