Get ready for these scams in 2025

Hari Ravichadran, founder and CEO of the online safety product Aura, recently got a front-row seat to a sophisticated scam designed to turn him into a victim of fraud. He and his team are regularly targeted by scammers, but this scheme was so well-conducted that it gave the normally skeptical Ravichadran pause. The play went like this: A scammer seemingly stole someone’s identity and used it to share a heart-wrenching story. The pretend victim claimed that the bank mistakenly wired Ravichadran her alleged family’s down payment for their new home. They urgently wanted Ravichadran to wire back the money he supposedly received.The would-be thief contacted not just Ravichadran, but also multiple company executives. The scammer communicated through what looked like a legitimate email address and social media profiles, and had accurate information for Ravichadran. They even invited him and his legal counsel to meet on Zoom with a bank employee in order to sort things out. SEE ALSO: 5 holiday scams that could wreck your season Ravichadran knew better than to reflexively trust what he’d been told. But, like most people, he also worried what might happen to the woman if she was telling the truth. Of course, things quickly fell apart when his lawyer joined a Zoom call with the purported bank employee. The individual appeared on camera for a split second and the conversation eventually became nonsensical. The lawyer suspected they were speaking to an AI-powered deepfake. Ravichadran says the attempt demonstrates just how savvy scammers have become….Get ready for these scams in 2025