Please increase fraud awareness and prevention
The United States is being attacked. Criminals are creating massive compounds overseas in places like Southeast Asia to target Americans and steal everything they can. It is a national security risk.
The elderly, and really all generations, are being taken for everything they own, devastating individuals and families, with no way to get back their wealth.
After speaking again at FSI’s annual OneVoice conference, Mike Byrnes wrote a Financial Advisor article called, Broker-Dealers Warned: Scams And Fraud At An All-Time High Entering The AI Era.
Read the full article to learn about these 15 major concerns and more:
- Senior citizen focus – Elderly fraud often happens when criminals take advantage of cognitive decline, social isolation, less familiarity with technology and/or over trusting.
- Fake investments – Crypto scams and the use of fake apps take advantage of entrepreneurs’ willingness to take risks.
- Colossal losses – Over $81 billion is stolen from Americans each year and the number is increasing.
- Precious metals – Criminals are getting victims to give them gold
- Criminal strategy – “Pig-butchering” is a term used by cyber criminals referring to fattening the animal before killing it, which in this case means getting all out of the victim that they can.
- Fake advisors – Impersonations of real financial advisors are happening on social media.
- Password theft – Screen-sharing “investigations” can get a victim to expose bank credentials.
- Money laundering – Victims are unknowingly becoming money mules.
- AI impersonators – Emotional relationships with AI-generated avatars that provide daily companionship are how some people get fooled into losing all their money.
- Gone forever – Most victims never recover their money.
- Disgrace – Shame and fear prevent many from reporting fraud.
- First detections – Family members often discover the problem too late.
- FBI under staffed – Law enforcement resources are overwhelmed, resulting in cases getting lost in a black hole.
- Heightened awareness – There is an urgent need to greatly increase fraud education and prevention efforts.
- Tech giants – AI companies and social networks should be doing more.
Financial advisors and broker-dealers are on the front lines of a rapidly escalating fraud crisis.
Please share this article with your network to shed light on the evil being committed in our world. Also, please contact Mike if you need a speaker on this topic.
