By Matthew Facciani, Social Scientist & Science Communicator | Author of Misguided | Researcher on Misinformation, Trust & Public Health
Financial fraud is one of the most painful forms of misinformation.
Because it doesn’t just mislead you, it immediately takes something real. In 2024, Americans reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud according to the FTC, with investment scams alone accounting for $5.7 billion. The FBI puts total internet-enabled financial crime at $16.6 billion for the same year. These numbers keep climbing, and sophisticated people get fooled too.
The three things scammers are always selling you.
Almost every financial scam falls into one of three categories.
Fake opportunity: A fraudulent investment product or scheme designed to look real, a pump-and-dump cryptocurrency, a celebrity-endorsed fund that doesn’t exist. The pitch looks polished, and by the time you realize something is wrong, the money is gone.
Fake authority: Someone impersonating a credible person or institution such as the SEC, your bank, a well-known broker, or increasingly, someone using AI to impersonate a financial advisor or public figure.
Fake urgency: The pressure tactic designed to make you act before you think. For example: “This offer closes tonight!” or “Move the funds now or your account will be frozen!” Legitimate investments do not work this way. When someone is pushing you to act right now, that pressure is the signal, not the opportunity.
The AI impersonation problem is worse than most people realize
Scammers are now using AI-generated audio and video (i.e. deepfakes) to impersonate real people with frightening accuracy. There are documented cases of fraudulent videos of Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and central bank governors promoting fake investment platforms. Warren Buffett himself confronted one of his deepfakes at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2024 annual meeting and said it was convincing enough that he “could imagine it tricking him into sending money overseas.” The New York Attorney General issued a formal investor alert warning about this exact threat.
More concerning is the use of AI to impersonate people you actually know. In early March 2026, RCMP Halifax reported five separate fraud cases in ten days: including a victim who sent $7,000 to someone impersonating their own son before a verification question exposed the fraud. AI can now clone someone’s voice from just seconds of audio pulled from social media. One defense could be to agree on a family code word in advance. Any urgent request for money must include it. If the caller can’t provide it, hang up and call back on a number you already have saved.
A real example of how fast this can go wrong
Those five RCMP Halifax cases paint a clear picture. A Lakeside resident lost $25,000 after responding to a Facebook ad featuring a public figure promoting gold investments. An Eastern Passage resident lost $8,000 after a scammer had them share their screen on a Zoom call and transferred money out through their own online banking. A Middle Sackville resident lost $300,000 to a romance scam that built trust slowly over months.
Five victims. Five methods. The same underlying playbook: build trust or create urgency, then move money before the target has time to think.
The tools that can protect you, and they’re mostly free
Before you trust a financial professional: FINRA BrokerCheck lets you verify any broker’s license status, employment history, and complaints. The SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database does the same for investment advisers. The SEC also has a unified search portal. For public companies, SEC EDGAR holds official filings. International equivalents: FCA (UK), CSA (Canada), ASIC (Australia), and the IOSCO Investor Alerts Portal for cross-border fraud warnings.
Before you trust what you’re seeing: Google Lens lets you reverse-search any image — useful for spotting stock photos presented as company leadership. TinEye finds the oldest version of an image. Hive Moderation’s detection tool checks for AI-generated video. Check domain age with ICANN Lookup — a “well-established firm” with a six-week-old website is not well-established. The Wayback Machine shows how far back a company’s presence actually goes.
Before you act on a financial claim: Google Fact Check Explorer aggregates over 150,000 fact checks and is a good first-check. Reuters Fact Check is especially useful for crypto scams and deepfake celebrity endorsements. And remember: in January 2024, hackers took over the SEC’s official X account and posted a fake Bitcoin ETF approval, triggering roughly $90 million in liquidated positions. Even an official-looking government account requires independent verification. Once you identify a financial scam, you should report it quickly to reduce its spread. In the US: FTC, FBI/IC3, SEC for securities fraud, and CFTC for commodity and crypto fraud.
Five habits worth building right now
- Impose a waiting period. Scammers rely on urgency. Give yourself at least 48 hours and research using tools you found yourself. Don’t immediately click on any link without checking who sent it first.
- Look up everyone in official databases. FINRA BrokerCheck and SEC IAPD are free and fast. If a professional can’t be found, don’t proceed.
- Verify through a second channel you control. If you receive a call from your bank or a government agency, hang up and call back using the official number from a website you navigate to yourself.
- Build a family code word for financial emergencies. Any urgent request for money requires that word. This is specifically designed to defeat AI voice cloning.
- Check domain age before trusting a website. ICANN Lookup takes 30 seconds. Pair it with a quick Wayback Machine check.
The most important thing
Financial fraud wants to move faster than your ability to think clearly. Every tool in this guide is designed to help you slow that process down. You don’t need to become a digital investigator, you just need to know these tools exist and build the habit of reaching for them before you act.
If someone is pressuring you right now, pause, take a breath. You have time. Hang up, look it up, and call back on a number you found yourself.
Matthew Facciani, PhD is a sociologist, science communicator, and author of Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It. Subscribe to his newsletter for more on misinformation research, media literacy skills, and building healthy skepticism.
