AI scams are on the rise. The FBI estimates American seniors lost around $8 billion to them last year, up 50% from 2024.
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the ranking member of the Aging Committee, held a committee hearing on Wednesday with guests who had suffered from the scams.
“What I heard was astonishing,” Gillibrand said. “One of the witnesses at the hearing, Deborah, shared her experience with an AI scam. Earlier this year, she received a call from a man who claimed that Deborah's daughter had been kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel.
“The scammer played what Deborah believed to be proof of her daughter's voice having a panic attack, telling her mom that she loved her and was sorry. Fearing for her daughter's life, Deborah stayed on the phone with the scammer for five hours while the caller issued a series of urgent demands.”
Deborah sent the scammer $5,000. Her daughter was completely fine — the scammer had used AI to clone her voice.
She was unable to get the money back.
“Scammers use AI to generate deepfake images, clone voices, and launch phishing attacks that drain seniors' savings,” Gillibrand said. “In many cases, AI didn't invent these scams; it supercharged them, making old cons more convincing and easier to pull off.”
Gillibrand is sponsoring two bills that she said would empower federal agencies and law enforcement to stop the scams. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) are co-sponsors on the GUARD Act.
The legislation, she said, would put the FBI in charge because they have experience with foreign-based criminal networks — and that’s where a lot of AI scams originate.
Locally, Suffolk County lawmakers are considering a bill to make it harder for scammers to target senior citizens in a scheme that convinces them to convert all their money to gold bars.
