According to a report citing Global Anti-Scam Alliance data, victims lost $442 billion to scams across 42 countries last year. Experts note that the rise of AI tools has made fraudulent operations cheaper and easier to execute, moving beyond traditional tactics.
Modern scams leverage stolen data to identify targets on social media, utilizing AI-generated scripts and phishing kits. Analysis from ZeroFox indicates that phishing pages hosted on free tiers of developer and AI platforms grew more than fourfold to 10,600 over two years.
Fraud speed is increasing, with nearly two-thirds of victims making payments within 24 hours of initial contact. Despite the complexity, experts suggest that digital footprints from social media and messaging apps provide traceable evidence for investigations.
Research by PYMNTS Intelligence highlights a trend of underreporting, with the number of victims who did not report scams rising by 26% over the past year to reach 11%. Notably, 28% of those who remained silent were unaware that reporting was an option.
