FBI warns Seniors about Billion Dollar Scam that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) scam has been used to drain entire life savings or retirement accounts has become “devastating” for seniors. FBI Los Angeles on July 15 sent out a reminder about the Phantom Hacker Scam, which has cost Americans over $1 billion since at least 2024, according to the agency. The FBI said the scam targets senior citizens and warns that victims could lose their “life savings.” The scam operates in three phases: a “tech support impostor,” “financial institution impostor” and a “US government impostor.”
In the first phase, a tech support impostor will contact victims through text, phone call or email, then direct them to download a program allowing the scammer remote access to their computer. Then, the scammer asks victims to open their financial accounts to “determine whether there have been any unauthorized charges,” which the FBI says, “is most lucrative for targeting.” Afterwards, the scammer will choose an account to target, then tell the victim they will get a call for further instructions from the “fraud department” of the bank hosting their account.
In the second phase, the financial institution impostor will then call the victim and inform them that their funds have been “accessed by a foreign hacker” and must be moved to a “safe” third party account. Victims are then instructed to send the money via wire transfer, cash or cryptocurrency, and are told to send “multiple transactions over a span of days or months.”
In the third phase of the scam, the victim could be contacted by someone posing as a U.S. government employee, who prompts the individual to move their funds to an “alias” account for protection.
In addition, scammers are using AI to get personal information with some of their tactics, targeting people with specific interests they have. It’s been happening with scammers going into our MOAA Chapter website (and the MOAA FL Council website) to write emails as if they are the President asking for chapter members to send gift cards. In the article, an example was given that seniors are posting things on Facebook or other Social Media, and in this case, a senior said they’re a “Corvette” Collector. The criminals are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to look for that type of characteristics and profiles. And they’ll send you an email or a message saying, ‘hey, that Corvette that you ordered a month ago is now available for immediate delivery if you pay a delivery fee of $500, you can get it delivered right away.” The senior may very well have ordered a Corvette and says, ‘well, I’m a Corvette collector. Maybe I was forgetful to pay the delivery fee.” This is a simplistic example, and I can well imagine AI is using Amazon or E-Bay information to also scam buyers.
