This week in scams: the tactics circulating right now
A short digest of the scam tactics fraud agencies and our own monitoring are seeing most right now — smishing about tolls and deliveries, AI voice-clone and deepfake fraud, “safe account” bank-impersonation calls, and second-wave recovery scams — with links to what each one looks like and how to shut it down.
A few patterns dominate the current wave. Smishing — scam text messages — remains the highest-volume tactic: fake “unpaid toll” demands, missed-delivery notices, and “bank refund” texts that all funnel you to a lookalike page to harvest card details and one-time codes. The rule that defeats all of them is the same: never act on a link in an unexpected text; reach the organisation yourself using a number or address you already trust.
AI-enabled fraud is the fastest-moving branch. Voice-cloned “family emergency” calls, deepfake “celebrity” investment and giveaway ads, and deepfake video calls impersonating a CEO to authorise a transfer are all in active circulation. Seeing or hearing someone is no longer proof it is them — verify any urgent money request through a separate, known channel before you act.
Two social-engineering classics are also surging. The “move your money to a safe account” call, where someone posing as your bank or the police says your funds are at risk, is never genuine — a real bank never asks you to move money to protect it. And recovery scams target people who have already lost money: a stranger who contacts you promising to recover your funds for a fee is almost always the same criminal network, or another one working the victim lists. Everything below links to a fuller breakdown of each tactic and the exact steps to take.
What to do
- Treat every link in an unexpected text as hostile — reach the company through a number or app you already have
- Verify any urgent money request (family, boss, bank) through a separate, known channel before acting — a voice or video is no longer proof of identity
- Remember a genuine bank never asks you to move money to a “safe account”, and no one legitimate charges an up-front fee to recover money you already lost
- Never share a one-time passcode with anyone who contacts you, for any reason
- Report scams to your national fraud service so the current waves are tracked