How to spot a scam with AI

Anyone who rushes you or asks for gift cards is a scam. The full checklist, one page.

Scammers have gotten good at sounding real. A voice that sounds exactly like your grandson. An email that looks exactly like your bank. AI has made these scams cheaper and easier to fake than ever before.

That's why using AI to fact-check things that look too good to be true is so helpful right now. A product page, a marketplace listing, AI-generated photos or videos, almost anything you can think of. When in doubt, check it out. Better safe than sorry.

The three warning signs

Urgency. "Act now or something bad happens." Scams, especially AI voice clones, are built to rush you into panic. Real institutions don't demand instant action. If you feel rushed, stop and call someone.

Secrecy. "Don't tell your family. Don't tell the bank." This is common in AI voice scams, where the caller sounds exactly like your grandson but tells you to keep it quiet. Anyone asking you to hide it from people who love you is not on your side.

Unusual payment. Gift cards, wire transfers, crypto, or a courier picking up cash. No matter how real the voice or photos look, no real emergency is ever solved with a gift card.

What AI changed — and what it didn't

AI can now clone a voice from a few seconds of audio and write scam emails with perfect grammar. So "it sounded just like them" or "it was well written" no longer proves anything is real.

What hasn't changed: the request is still the tell.

Urgent call from a "family member" asking for money? Hang up, call them back on their real number.

Email from your "bank" asking you to log in? Skip the link, go to the bank's website directly.

When in doubt, pause

You are never rude for hanging up, waiting, or asking a family member to look at something with you before you act. Every real scam relies on you deciding fast. Taking even ten minutes to check breaks nearly all of them.