There’s an old saying, “Don’t believe everything you read, and only half of what you see.” Remember that the next time your phone lights up or you get an unexpected message. Canadians lost more than $700 million to fraud in 2025, and since up to 90% of cases are never reported, that number is likely much higher.
You’re probably thinking it could never happen to you. But don’t be so sure. These bad actors have skills, high tech equipment, and psychological manipulation techniques that play on our emotions. In the moment, in a hurry, in a state of high anxiety, in a situation where not believing could have dire consequences… never say never.
In upcoming articles, we’ll review some of the many ruses to watch out for, but first, let’s look at what makes these newer scams so convincing.
Social Engineering – If you have an online presence, scammers have a file on you. If you’re on LinkedIn, they know your background and current place of work. From Facebook they can get your birthdate, names of friends and family, and where you like to vacation. Maybe you’ve complained about your cell phone provider on Reddit. All of that information has been collected and can be used to create a con engineered just for you. Now, you’re thinking, who would want to target me? That’s the point. They want you to be unsuspecting. They target everyone, it just your turn
Spoofing – That name and number that pop up when a call is coming in may or may not be the actual caller. There’s no way to tell at the time. While many of us know not to trust the number, if the name is familiar, we’re likely to answer. It could be the name of a relative, someone at your bank or the name of an organization, like “Canada Revenue Agency.” Scammers can also spoof email addresses, and add real logos to messages to make them more convincing.
Voice Cloning – A voice mail greeting or video clip is all scammers need to impersonate someone over the phone. They use AI to mimic tone, cadence, and speed of how someone speaks.
Video Fakes – Artificial intelligence has also now made it easy for scammers to create recorded videos, and even live, interactive, video calls posing as someone you know, a politician, or celebrity.
Website Cloning – Fake websites that look identical to the real thing are also useful to scammers, and are easy to create with the right tools.
You also need to be aware that scams use more than one method of communicating with you or multiple points of contact. Yes, it’s a sad state of affairs, but the more you know, the less likely you are to become a victim.
Have you ever used voice search to look up and call a business? Stay tuned!
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