How to Protect Retirement Savings from AI Scams 

When you can’t trust what you see or hear online, knowing how to verify is your strongest protection

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One thing about retirement today looks very different from a generation ago: technology.

Taking care of business in retirement (or anytime) now happens largely online.

You can bank and invest online. Communicate with family and friends. Plan trips and buy tickets to shows. And even complete everyday errands.

New technology is a good thing, because it brings advantages:

• Convenience
• Speed
• Easy connection
• Access to tools once available only to professionals

However, daily online activity comes with increasingly sophisticated digital threats.

Digital threats are evolving fast. That in itself is not the real risk. The real risk is not taking time to gain the knowledge and awareness you need to respond.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has upped the ante with sometimes shockingly bold scams designed to get money illegally.

Retirement savers and retirees are especially vulnerable to online scams because they are less likely to understand technology.

And seniors have large amounts of money in their retirement accounts after saving for a lifetime.

Knowing how to protect yourself and your savings from AI scams and online fraud has become an important part of the retirement picture.

Numbers Behind the Online Scam Problem

There’s no doubt internet crimes are ballooning.

The FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report recorded losses of more than $16 billion over 859,532 complaints. A 33% increase from the year before.¹

Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Annual Report 2024 ² 

According to the FBI 2024 report, people over the age of 60 filed the most complaints and suffered the highest losses: nearly $5 billion total.¹

Those are significant numbers.

But the numbers represent people who just didn’t have the information they needed.

The best response to AI-powered fraud isn’t worry. It’s preparation.

How Has AI Changed Scamming, Hacking, and Fraud?

In years past, people learned to spot scams by looking for bad grammar and clumsy requests in emails and texts. Many hackers and scammers back then didn’t have the skill to match sophisticated companies they claimed to represent.

So, you might have received:

• A phone bill with typos and bad grammar
• A text with missing words
• An exaggerated threat of fines or jail if you didn’t respond

Spotting these kinds of fraud attempts is still a useful skill, but it’s no longer enough. Thanks to better technology, and now years of experience, hackers and scammers are much more proficient.

With AI, online messages rarely have technical errors. Phishing emails now seem so authentic they have a 60% higher click-through rate than traditionally crafted phishing emails.³

Hackers can create and send messages fast, which means they can do it more often. A convincing phishing campaign used to take 16 hours to create. Now it takes roughly five minutes.³

The messages look professional, appear to come from real institutions, and may use your name or other personal information designed to capture your trust.

• You may be asked to transfer money in unusual ways including gift cards, wire transfers, or cryptocurrency.
• Scammers may appeal to your emotions to override clear thinking.
• They may ask you to keep relationships and transactions secret from your family.

Don’t feel bad if this has happened to you. Scammers are getting better, and many people have fallen for their tricks.

The good news is, one of the old “tells” is still valid for nearly all scams: urgency, pressure, and a request to act before thinking. If you see this, don’t reply and find a trusted way to verify the message before taking action.

How Do Scammers Use AI Against Retirement Accounts?

Scammers believe older people know less about technology than other age groups.

They also count on certain qualities of many retirees to play into the scam:

• Failing memories
• Affection for family and motivation to help
• A desire to follow the rules – even fake rules
• Shame or embarrassment over money matters
• A feeling of desperation that fixed incomes sometimes bring

Retirement savers are particularly vulnerable because their savings are finite, and retirement income is usually much lower than it was before they retired.

Unlike someone in their 30s who has decades to rebuild, retirees have fewer options for recouping a major loss.

COMMON FORMS OF FRAUD AGAINST RETIREES

1. “Phantom Hacker” Scams (Multi-Phase Impersonation)

This combines three fake roles to drain life savings. AI mimics the voices of bank or government officials, making fraudulent calls incredibly realistic.

Phase 1: Tech Support Impostor. A scammer contacts you, claiming your computer has been hacked. You feel the urgency, so you grant them remote access to the computer.

Phase 2: Bank/Brokerage Impostor. A second scammer calls to reinforce the claim. They pretend to be from your financial institution, verifying a “hack” into your retirement account.

Phase 3: Government Impostor. A third scammer, posing as a federal agent (e.g., FBI or CIA), convinces you to move your money to a “safe” third-party account to “protect” it.

2. AI Voice Cloning (“Grandparent Scam 2.0”)

Scammers use AI to clone the voice of a loved one, such as a child, grandchild, or spouse. They can use as little as three seconds of social media audio to create a voice with 85% accuracy.⁴

The voice can be so real, it‘s hard for victims to detect the fraud.

You receive a call and it appears to be a loved one in a panic. They claim to have been in a car accident, arrested, or in trouble in a foreign country. They request immediate wire transfers or cryptocurrency payments to get out of trouble.

3. AI-Powered Phishing and “Smishing”

AI now can create “error-free” communications — no grammar mistakes, misspellings or other errors.

With this ability, scammers can send seemingly authentic personalized emails or text messages (smishing) that closely impersonate banks, retirement plan providers, or government agencies such as the IRS.

AI can easily capture public information about you and use it to personalize messages to make them seem authentic and trustworthy.

4. Deepfake Videos and Images

Scammers use generative AI to create very realistic but fake videos or images to gain your trust. The quality of such videos is now often impeccable.

They send you a proof of life image or video showing a loved one seemingly in danger. Then they demand a ransom.

Or you could be in a video call with an fake investment expert or corporate or government official that is entirely AI-generated for the purpose of scamming you.

5. Romance-to-Investment Scam

This involves building a long-term, false romantic relationship online. The goal is to eventually ask you to invest in a fake cryptocurrency platform that steals your money.

Some of these scams lead to a request to pay for an airline ticket to come see you or send money to help a relative of the scammer.

Scammers can now use one convincing fake identity to connect with many people at once. Without AI, this would not be possible.

6. Synthetic Identity Fraud

Using AI, scammers can combine real information (such as a stolen Social Security number) with fake AI-generated information to create a new, “synthetic” identity.

The fake identities are then used to open new fraudulent accounts or take over existing ones, making them hard for traditional security systems to detect.

7. AI-Based Investment Pitches

Fraudsters use AI to create realistic but fake websites and investment apps that show fictional account growth.

The sites offer you too-good-to-be-true returns, often claiming to use AI to trade cryptocurrency on your behalf.

“Seeing is believing” is no longer a reliable guide. However, just being aware of scams helps protect you, your family, and your savings.

How Retirement Savers Protect Themselves from AI Scams

The more prevalent scams become, the more people learn to question what they hear and see.

Just knowing that clones, fake profiles, and altered invoices exist is the first step to not being fooled. Once you know what to look for, it can be surprisingly easy to identify and sidestep a scam.

Here’s what you can do:

Establish a Safe Word

Use a code word so family members can prove their identity in an emergency call, text, video, or email.

Make sure everyone in the family knows the word, and knows to share it verbally, not online.

Slow Down

Modern scams don’t just target accounts — they target decisions. They use fear, urgency, and misplaced trust to prevent you from thinking clearly.

Then, they motivate you to move money voluntarily.

Urgency is part of most scams. So, your most powerful anti-scam tool is a personal rule to NOT respond until you verify.

Verify Independently

Do not click on links in emails or texts. Instead, contact your bank or family member at an email or text number you know or look up yourself.

If you receive a request by phone, hang up and call your loved one or financial institution directly.

Use a known, verified number — not the number they called you from.

Secure Social Media

Set social media privacy settings to high to prevent scammers from stealing voice samples and personal details.

Change passwords regularly. If you suspect you’ve been hacked or scammed, change passwords immediately.

Check Accounts Frequently

Regularly watch for unauthorized transactions. If you find anything suspicious, change your password immediately and report it.

Ask a trusted family member or advisor to review your statements as backup. Periodically change passwords on your most important accounts.

Layer Financial Defenses

Digital security protects your accounts. But true financial protection goes further.

A diversified retirement plan that includes noncorrelated assets, such as physical gold, doesn’t depend on a single system staying intact.

Whether it’s a hack or economic stress that threatens your savings, diversifying helps you weather the storm.

Stay Informed, Not Alarmed

The AI landscape will keep changing.

Follow trusted sources, know the latest scam tactics, and review your financial protections periodically.

Keeping informed will keep you on top of the risk — not scrambling to fix the damage.

For additional protection, report suspicious activity through the FINRA Regulatory Tip Form or the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.

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