Every story needs a good villain and in this one, it’s not AI. In hospitals, it’s helping detect disease earlier. In living rooms, it's keeping Dad connected. AI, in all its forms, is here, and much of it is genuinely good.

But every frontier has its outlaws. And it’s the scammers using AI who are the ones who are making out like a bandit with funds from Mom’s bank account. Saddle up, we’ve wrangled the AI scams coming for your parents, are sharing how to prevent them, and what to do if you can’t.

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Scams aren't new. What is fresh is how quickly criminals can manufacture proof.

Generative AI can clone a voice from a short audio clip scraped off social media, generate fake videos of a grandkid in distress, craft phishing emails personalized enough to fool almost anyone, and build counterfeit websites indistinguishable from your real bank. The methods may have changed but the goals haven’t: create urgency, fear, and secrecy and then collect payment through a method that's nearly impossible to undo.

The FBI has warned that criminals are leveraging AI to create highly convincing impersonations at massive scale. And your dad is their primary target. According to the FTC's Protecting Older Consumers 2024-2025 report, fraud losses reported by older adults skyrocketed from $600 million in 2020 to $2.4 billion in 2024. Because most fraud goes unreported, the FTC estimates real losses could be as high as $81.5 billion.

Beyond the obvious — more savings, more retirement funds — older adults tend to answer their phones, trust authority, and handle problems privately. The same dad who texts the whole family about Mom's knee replacement surgery without mentioning she actually needed it in the first place is the one who'll try to sort out a suspicious call on his own. You can see how that becomes a problem.

So, what should Dad look out for? 

Impersonation scams: Voice cloning lets criminals pose convincingly as the IRS, Medicare, a bank or Mom’s favorite grandkid who’s in trouble. A McAfee study found that of those who received a cloned-voice message, 77% lost money, ranging from $500 to $15,000. Deepfakes take it visual: AI-generated videos can put words in anyone's mouth with frightening accuracy.

Phishing emails: The bread and butter of online fraud, AI has transformed them from sloppy mass mailings into precision instruments. They now bypass spam filters, arrive with mom's name in the greeting, reference her actual bank, and link to a counterfeit site that looks exactly like the real thing. By the time she realizes something's wrong, her credentials are already gone.

Investment scams: Cryptocurrency was the single biggest category of dollar losses. Cryptocurrency-related losses increased 66% and complaints about crypto kiosks nearly doubled.

Romance scams: Fraudsters build fake relationships over weeks or months before asking for money. Keeping Dad on the phone is by design, it prevents him from talking to someone who might see through it.

Wondering why Mom didn't mention she'd been scammed? Shame is a powerful gag order. So is fear of losing independence. She may still be trying to fix it herself and the last thing she needs (or wants) is the reverse Uno card of "I told you so."

Let’s say you or Dad identified the scam immediately after it happened. Here’s what you quickly do:

Want to help Mom prevent the next one? Angle away from authority and lean into agency:

Helpful care-focused finds we’ve identified and researched so you don’t have to. 

Strangers aren't the only threat. 

Financial exploitation by caregivers, family members, and trusted individuals is among the most underreported forms of elder fraud, and one of the most devastating. 

If you suspect someone close to Dad is taking advantage, the Department of Justice's Elder Justice Initiative offers state-by-state resources and a hotline to report it: 1-833-FRAUD-11.

You said it. This week’s submissions.

“I'm tired.”

“My mom told me I need to understand her being mean to me, because of her age.”

“She introduced me as her mom again. Sigh.”

“My dad broke his hip 2 weeks before moving cross country.”

“I'm processing my trauma everyday by caring for my mom better than she cared for me.”

“Holding my mother's prolapsed rectum in my hand, I wonder how many could say the same.”

“Thank you to everyone who has helped their loved ones, no matter their age!”