Recently, I received an email solicitation from a PR company offering to help me promote my book. While I get these kinds of solicitation emails on occasion, this one impressed me with the level of detail it included about both my book and my career. Feeling pleased that someone had done their homework on me, I showed the email to my spouse.
He took one look at it and knew that it was a pitch generated by artificial intelligence. It was clear to him that the sender had asked an AI to craft a personalized pitch after trawling the internet for information about me.
When I received almost identical pitches from four other companies within the next two weeks, I realized the first message was just the vanguard of a new type of spam email.
Although the PR pitch I received wasn’t exactly a scam, it was the kind of solicitation that I usually delete with prejudice. The personalization-via-AI meant it bypassed my usually well-honed bull hockey detector—and it reminded me that there’s no level of intelligence, diligence, or stability that can guarantee someone will never get played. Unfortunately, as technology and scams continue to grow more sophisticated, we are all increasingly vulnerable.
But that doesn’t mean falling for a scam is inevitable. Understanding how modern scams work and recognizing the warning signs can help you avoid becoming the victim of a con. Here’s what you need to know.
New tech, old strategies
Reading through the Federal Trade Commission’s list of new scams is enough to make you nostalgic for the Nigerian prince emails of yore. From fake health insurance websites that proliferate during open enrollment every year to Roblox phishing that targets children to robocalls from AI voice clones that are nearly indistinguishable from the real person, fraudsters have many more tools in their arsenal to separate you from your money.
But even though current technology is more sophisticated than anything scammers had access to before, the strategies behind any fraud remain exactly the same. That’s because in every scam, the con artist needs to convince you that giving them what they want is the right thing to do—and there are only a few ways to accomplish that:
- Personalization: When a scammer seems to know details about your life, it can help them seem more trustworthy. They may use their knowledge to appeal to your vanity (like I experienced with the AI-generated PR pitch), to reassure you (like when a scammer knows who you bank with), or to frighten you (like when con artists pretend to be a family member in trouble).
- Friendliness: Scammers (and salespeople) exploit our manners, sociability, and empathy by using targeted friendliness. For example, back when credit card companies were allowed to market directly to college students, I once accidentally signed up for an unwanted card via a phone solicitation. The caller started by asking to verify some information, including my birthday. He then claimed his little sister had the same birthday. From there, I didn’t want to hang up on the guy who was so delighted that his sister and I had something in common.
- Urgency and scarcity: Feeling like you’re about to miss out on something tends to cloud your judgment. That’s why scams often include a ticking clock or a quickly vanishing product. It forces you to make a decision without considering the pros and cons or consulting with someone else.
- Emotion: Scammers know that emotional decisions tend to be reactive, and they use this against their victims. That’s why scams so often exploit the emotions that are most likely to short-circuit your logical thinking: fear, greed, and empathy.
New technology can make it easier for scammers to reach you and convince you of something that is untrue. But the scam itself must still use these basic strategies to work. Which means we always have the tools we need to protect ourselves.
The anti-scam checklist
Every time you travel by air, the pilot and copilot go through the preflight checklist, no matter how many times they have flown. The checklist ensures that no important details are missed. The safety of the plane and its passengers is too important to rely on the imperfect memory of fallible humans.
The best way to avoid scams is to adopt a similar checklist for your finances. Instead of relying on your imperfect brain to keep you safe, building these guardrails around your money can help protect you from even the most sophisticated of scams:
- Make your savings hard to access: This policy is a version of the old personal finance advice about freezing your credit card in a block of ice. Forcing yourself to wait before spending money is often all you need to come to your senses. So putting the bulk of your savings in an online savings account, rather than the same bank as your checking account, can be enough to protect you. It typically takes at least one business day for money to transfer from one bank account to another, and an online savings account does not usually come with an ATM or debit card. That means your money is available in a true emergency, but far enough away that it’s protected from scam-based spending.
- Have an accountability buddy: This could be an agreement with your spouse to discuss purchases over a certain dollar amount or a policy that you have to run every major financial decision past your financial adviser. If someone ever tells you not to discuss something with your accountability partner, treat that as a major red flag.
- Hang up and call back: Many scams begin with an unsolicited phone call from a legitimate-looking phone number. Make it your policy to hang up on the caller and place your own phone call to the main phone number of the agency or business. If there really is a problem with your credit card or Social Security benefit or if you have legitimately won a prize, you will be able to access that information via the phone call you initiate.
- Institute a 24-hour rule: There is no legitimate investment, financial problem, or government fine that can’t wait 24 hours. Cool off for one day before you make any financial decisions or take any action on an unanticipated problem or unsolicited call for money.
- Have contact information on hand for all of your loved ones: When scammers exploit our fear for our loved ones, it’s very difficult to respond rationally. But if you get a call from an unknown number or a “helpful” stranger claiming to be calling about your child or grandchild, hang up and reach out directly to your family member or anyone living in their household to find out what’s happening. If the original call is legitimate, you can always call back.
- Pretend to be your work nemesis: When scammers appeal to your ego, it’s easy to fall for the idea that this stranger truly appreciates everything that makes you awesome. But if you’re tempted to buy, invest, or otherwise accept the offer, imagine the same offer was going to someone you dislike. Would you still believe that the offer was legitimate? Or would you start asking questions?
- Ask yourself how you know something isn’t a scam: Before making a financial decision, ask yourself how you can know for sure that the opportunity isn’t a scam. If you can’t answer the question, don’t spend the money.
Embrace vigilance
It takes only a single moment of inattention or emotional dysregulation to give a scammer what they want. And the rise of difficult-to-detect fakes and other sophisticated scams makes it even harder to maintain your attention or rational thinking.
But creating systems for yourself—similar to the preflight checklist pilots use before every single flight—makes it more difficult to let your emotions drive and forces you to pause before making a decision. And that space between the scammer’s pitch and your decision is often all you need to stay safe.