Scams in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The words artificial intelligence are everywhere lately! From ChatGPT’s impacts on the workforce to AI-generated art, there’s no shortage of speculation about how artificial intelligence will impact our lives. But what is it? Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, references machines that can complete tasks like visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and more. The possibilities are endless!

Unfortunately, fraudsters have picked up on the power of AI, too. Scams are increasingly believable, mostly because of writing, photos, videos and audio recordings created by AI. Grammar errors that would’ve identified scam messages in the past are now often removed by proofreading robots backed by AI, and some fraudsters even use AI to create fake recordings that sound like a loved one or person you trust. Others will go so far as to insert the face of a family member on top of another image.

From scary voicemails that sound like a grandchild calling for help to cleverly-formatted scam texts from supposedly trusted organizations, nearly every kind of scam has become harder to identify.

Here’s a scam text that was sent to some of our members last month: “Rogue Credit Union: There was a new device login attempt or possible login to your Rogue CU account outside the U.S, If you did not initiate this, please secure your account by visiting…”

Pretty believable, right? A close read of the text reveals a few red flags that tell us the message is a scam, but they’re hard to spot! For example, we never call ourselves “Rogue CU,” and there should be a period after the “S” in the abbreviation for United States. We’ll also never end a sentence with a comma. Our copywriter would never hear the end of it!

In the age of AI, it’s more important than ever to be careful when receiving a call, text or email. Never respond to a message you’re not sure about, even if it seems to be from a person or organization you trust. Instead, give us a call at 800.856.7328 to verify the legitimacy of the message. Calling us directly helps you avoid accidentally ending up on the phone with a fraudster.

At Rogue Credit Union, we take the safety and security of our members’ accounts very seriously. If you have any questions or suspect fraudulent activity on your account(s), we’re here to help. Give us a call at 800.856.7328, chat with us online or stop by your local branch.