SALT LAKE CITY — Remember the text you got about the toll you still owe or the one about paying extra money to get your delayed USPS shipment?
Those are just a couple of the many types of text messages scammers use to grab your attention and sometimes walk away with your money.
Everything from our online purchases to what we post on social media is all fuel for scammers.
Their information farming has been made easier by artificial intelligence.
“All of that information is out there on the web, in the ether someplace, and A.I. is now able to go grab all that information, including images of you, etc.," said Katie Hass, the director of Utah’s Division of Consumer Protection. "So that when a scammer reaches out to you, they can know more about you, know more about your personality maybe, things that might matter to you and then kind of get at you that way."
Hass says A.I. has also made it easier for scammers to clean up the mistakes that would typically tell our brains, “This is a scam." Things like spelling errors or poor grammar, now nearly non-existent with the help of A.I.
“The minute you see a text message or a phone call that startles you or makes you feel anxious in any way, we encourage people to take a minute and call a friend,” said Hass. “This is really important with our elderly individuals as well as our kids, but also ourselves.”
While it’s not new, the grandparent scam is one that’s grown more sophisticated with time and A.I.
Scammers will clone the voice of a child, often that child being a relative of that grandparent.
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“They take the grandchild of that voice, they call the grandparent and they say, ‘Grandma, I’m in jail, don’t tell mom and dad, I don’t want them to be mad, but I need you to send me some money right away,'" Hass explained. "Grandma is now in a very heightened state. She’s nervous about her grandchild. She wants to do something to help him, so she doesn’t stop to ask the questions that she needs to ask."
Hass says a good idea for every family is to have a password, a safe word that everyone in the family knows, so if they’re skeptical about a caller’s true identity, ask for the password.
If they don’t know it, hang up.
“You can also ask very personal questions that only that grandchild would know, the answer to stuff that you wouldn’t put on social media,” said Hass.
The Division of Consumer protection also warns consumers to be wary about responding to any text from a number you don’t know.
If it’s a number you don’t recognize, don’t pick it up. If it’s important, the person on the other end will leave a message or shoot you a text.
From there, you can make an informed decision whether to respond.