Most of us learned to spot fraud by looking for familiar warning signs: typos, unusual email addresses, generic greetings, or messages that simply feel off.
Those are still important clues. But as scams have become more sophisticated, they are no longer enough on their own.
Consider one example from this spring. Carnival, the cruise operator, disclosed a breach that exposed personal information for close to six million people. Not just names and email addresses. Dates of birth, phone numbers, and in many cases driver’s license and passport numbers. That kind of information does not sit still once it is out. So the text about a problem with your reservation can now arrive with real details attached. The right dates. Your name spelled correctly. A booking reference that checks out. Nothing looks wrong, because nothing is wrong except who sent it.
The second one is harder, and it belongs to summer specifically. A few seconds of audio from a social media video is enough to clone a voice. The call from a grandchild in trouble is an old scam. What is new is that it now sounds exactly like the grandchild, and that “I’m traveling and I can’t talk long” is a cover story that explains away every oddity in the call. This is not a rare problem. The FTC reports that fraud losses among people 60 and older rose about fourfold in four years, from roughly 600 million dollars in 2020 to 2.4 billion in 2024.
Here is what these scams have in common: they do not depend on you overlooking a typo. They depend on keeping you in the call, text thread, or email long enough to make a rushed decision.
That is why one of the safest habits is to leave the channel in which the request arrived. Close the text and open the company’s official app. End the call and dial a number you already trust, such as the one printed on your card or statement. Even caller ID is not proof, because scammers can make a call appear to come from a legitimate company.
It also helps not to verify the situation alone. A trusted family member, advisor, or money manager may know whether a trip, payment, or request fits with what is actually happening. A second person can turn “Is this real?” into a quick verification instead of a rushed decision made under pressure.
Jeremy Zizmor is the founder of Assurance Family Partners, a company whose mission is to assist and empower individuals and families who need help managing their personal day-to-day finances. He is responsible for running all facets of the business.
