Flourish Health & Wellbeing eMag - Latest Edition - Flipbook - Page 62
MONEY
MIND
Scam Proo昀椀ng
Your Money
in the Age of AI
BY CON BARBAYANNIS, CPA
Only a few years ago, a
scam was easier to spot.
The email had spelling
mistakes. The website
looked clunky. The
message from the “bank”
felt slightly off.
Today, arti昀椀cial
intelligence has changed
the game.
Scammers can now create
polished investment
ads, fake news articles,
realistic looking websites,
convincing emails, cloned
voices and deepfake
style videos that appear
cent had lost money to
to feature celebrities,
one. Despite this, 73 per
business leaders or trusted
cent of people believed
organisations. The aim is
they could identify a scam.
not always to hack your
device. More often, it is to
That con昀椀dence gap is
hack your decision making.
exactly what criminals
exploit.
The scale of the problem
Across the 42 countries
is now global. Research
surveyed, scam losses
from the Global Anti Scam
were estimated at US$442
Alliance and Feedzai,
billion in 2025. In the
based on 46,000 adults
United States, consumers
across 42 markets,
reported losing more
found that 57 per cent
than US$12.5 billion to
of adults worldwide had
fraud in 2024, up 25 per
encountered a scam in
cent on the previous year.
the past year, while 23 per
Investment scams were
