How to Identify and Protect Yourself From AI Financial Scams in 2026
Table of Contents
Article Intelligence (AI) is growing at a rapid pace, and although it has the potential to drive ground breaking innovation in science, medicine and climate change, it also has the potential to be weaponised by those with bad intensions wanting to make a quick buck.
In this article, we discuss the four common types of AI scams, how we can identify them and how we can protect ourselves from them.
Deepfake Videos
Scammers use generative AI to create images, sound and video that appears to be people you trust promoting a product or service; but it’s completely fake. Deepfake videos are currently one of the fastest growing scams in the UK. Detecting deepfakes is becoming increasingly more challenging as the technology continues to advance and the content becomes more widespread.
How to Identify a Deepfake Video:
- Unnatural facial movements and lighting inconsistencies
- Spatial and visual inconsistencies, such as noise and colour differences
- Mismatches between speech and mouth movements
- The source of the information and the reliability of the account that posted it
Online Bot Accounts
AI now allows scammers to create not just one, but large numbers of fake social media accounts that appear to be real people. These accounts will post, like, comment and even respond to other users but these profiles are AI-generated with no human being on the other end.
How to Identify an Online Bot Account
- Uses generic language
- Unusually fast responses
- Pressure for quick decisions
- Requesting personal information
Voice Cloning
Voice cloning uses AI to recreate someone else’s voice. Scammers will often use it to impersonate a loved one and demand money or information. Voice cloning is similar to deepfake videos in that they can be very convincing with research by McAfee showing over 70% of people can’t tell the difference between the voice clone and the original recording.
How to Identify Voice Cloning
- Unexpected voicemails or phone calls asking for more or personal details
- Unusual or urgent requests from someone you know
- A robotic tone, poor audio quality or unnatural pauses
- Calls from unknown numbers, even if the voice sounds familiar
Password Cracking
AI is making it easier for hackers to crack passwords. Recent studies have found that 51% of passwords were cracked within a minute, 65% were cracked in less than an hour and 81% were cracked within a month. Weak passwords, especially ones that are short, simple or are reused are most at risk of being hacked.
How to Protect Yourself From AI Password Cracking:
- Use at least 1 characters ensuring to mix upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols
- Update passwords regularly and do not reuse them
- Avoid common words or phrases (eg: your favourite sports team)
- Enable multi-factor authentication for extra protection
- Use a password manager to generate and store passwords
Final Thoughts
Industry experts believe that the growth of AI is likely to drive an increase in financial fraud. Therefore, it’s our job to protect ourselves from bad actors.
Click here for more information about Thistle Credit Union or read more from Thistle below.
A Better Way to Borrow
At Thistle Credit Union, our home improvement loans are designed to help you plan ahead, spread the cost sensibly and avoid high-interest credit cards.
Borrowing up to £15,000 and spread repayments over 5 years.
Fixed repayments, no hidden charges and no early repayment penalties.
Applying is straightforward and decisions are made locally by real real people, not algorithms.
Representative Example:
- Borrow £7,500
- Repay over 5 years
- Interest rate of 11.9% APR
- Monthly repayments of £170
Apply online today or get in touch with a branch to discuss your options.
You may also like...
5 Money Mistakes to Avoid This Halloween
Let’s be honest, we all have financial horror stories. Learning from these experiences are key to helping us develop a healthy relationship with money. Here are 5 common money mistakes to avoid this Halloween.
How Marketers Trick You into Spending More Money
As we head into the holiday season, businesses will start ramping up their marketing efforts in an attempt to convince you to spend your hard earned money with them. Given that you’ve worked hard for your money, businesses should also work hard to take it from you. Here are 5 tricks that marketing departments us to try and get their hands on your cash.
How to Identify and Protect Yourself From AI Financial Scams in 2026
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing at a rapid pace, and although it has the potential to drive ground breaking innovation in science, medicine and climate change, it also has the potential to be weaponised by those who have bad intensions wanting to make a quick buck. In this article, we discuss the four common types of AI scams, how we can identify them and how we can protect ourselves from them.