Scams becoming more sophisticated, harder to detect, industry pros say
New Brunswickers reported losing $6 million to investment scams last year
The internet is more complex than it used to be. Posts that could once be taken at face value now might require a second look.
And the numbers don't lie. According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, losses totalling $638 million were reported in 2024.
New Brunswickers reported losing $6 million to investment scams alone in 2024 — five times that of the $1.2 million figure in 2023.
And with scams getting more sophisticated, typos are not always a dead giveaway anymore.
"It can be extremely difficult to detect some of these scams because scammers are using AI to really supercharge the pitches that they make," said Marissa Sollows, the director of communications and public affairs for the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick.
She said fake accounts can be generated quickly under different names or website designs.
The types of scams vary — from newly created accounts selling tickets to an event to cleverly crafted news articles that prey on vulnerabilities.
That's the scam that Sollows said has recently started popping up — fake news articles leading someone to a cryptocurrency scam.
Last week, the commission put out an alert about just such a scam, formatted as if it were an article in the Telegraph- Journal newspaper, using Premier Susan Holt's name and image to promote a crypto site.
The trading platform, called CanCap — not to be confused with CanCap Group — made it appear the premier was promoting it. The headline over the now-removed article and the opening of the piece referred to this being a solution to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.
"They very much rely on us not being on our guard, not being on our game, and a lot of people are, rightfully so, feeling very anxious about this already," Sollows said.
When people see names of politicians or media outlets they trust, along with a topical headline, it makes it easier for them to react quickly instead of thinking twice — potentially losing a lot of money to fraudsters.
And crypto scams aren't the only ones floating around on the internet.
Renee Black, CEO of Goodbot, an organization focused on public literacy around issues in artificial intelligence and digital systems, said there's been a cookie-cutter style scam operation popping up, often using AI to try to advance believability.
The first version of the scam was a Facebook post from a business called Kelly Toronto, Black said. It had an AI-generated photo of a storefront with smashed windows and two women holding each other in front of the door.
Because of the vandalism, the store said it would be starting over, and it included a link to a stock-clearing sale.
At first glance, the post might elicit a sympathetic response, but closer inspection reveals several abnormalities, said Black, noting typos on the police tape, no address for the storefront on its website and the fully smashed-out windows.
"Somebody who's trying to steal money and clothes is trying to get in and out as quickly as possible — they're not trying to destroy the entire storefront," said Black.
Similar to the crypto scams, Black said the danger is that they can be created at the drop of hat.
For example, another version of the scam, using a different company name, told the story of a family going through an illness, leading them to close their store and hold a big sale.
Black said it's important to practise digital and civic literacy while using the internet, especially with a federal election on the horizon. During election campaigns, it is not out of the ordinary to see content on social media that is AI-generated, or groups leveraging AI to sow polarization.
"There's a lot going on in our feeds these days, and it's become increasingly hard even for experts to be able to detect some of these patterns," she said.
"You can do it better with automation, but we do kind of need humans in the loop, and there's not enough humans in the loop."
According to the 2024 Canada Risk report from the Better Business Bureau, scam susceptibility was at 59.5 per cent —the percentage of people who reported losing money after being targeted.
The results come from a survey that was distributed to those who submitted a scam report to the Better Business Bureau scam tracker in 2024.
Almost half of respondents said the engagement with the scammer began after responding to an ad or post on social media.
The report says investment or cryptocurrency scams are the number one riskiest scam in Canada and susceptibility is nearly 88 per cent.
How to spot a scam
Sollows said there are a few ways to tell if you could be dealing with an attempted scam.
If it's a crypto-trading platform that is regulated, it will be searchable on FCNB.ca, or the provincial regulator's site.
Failure to come up on that site, Sollows said, should be a major red flag.
But like all scams, Sollows said it can be difficult to tell what's real and what's not. She said to look for awkward phrasing, or suspicious accounts reaching out. She said you can even try pasting some of the article text into a free tool on the internet that detects AI content.
"It's not foolproof, but I think at this point, any tools that we can have in our tool belt can help us."
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