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When it comes to scams, everything that’s old is new again. Last week I wrote about a package nobody ordered. The scheme behind it, brushing, is years old, and on its own it was never much more than review fraud. What made it worth a column was the card tucked in the box with a QR code. However, an old con had picked up a new tool, and the tool made it worth worrying about.
That is not a one-time story. Most of what lands on a county clerk’s desk or a grandmother’s phone this year is not new. The scams are old. The delivery is new, and that’s what makes an old con work again.
Here are five scams worth knowing by name.
1. The grandparent call, now in your grandson’s voice
There are a number of scams similar. The old version: the phone rings late, a young man says he is in jail in another state, the line is bad, and he begs you not to tell his parents. It ran on panic and a poor connection.
The new version does not need a poor connection. A few seconds of someone’s voice, pulled from a graduation video or a church livestream, is enough for software to make that voice say anything. The call sounds right because, in every way your ear can measure, it is right.
The defense here is old-fashioned, and it still works. Agree on a family word that never gets written down or posted. If the call comes, hang up and call the person back on the number you already have. A real emergency survives a two-minute delay. A scam does not.
2. The overpayment check, now settled in seconds
The old version: someone sends a check for more than they owe, apologizes for the mix-up, and asks you to send back the difference. You do. Two weeks later, the bank tells you the check was worthless, and the money you sent was your own.
What changed is speed. The refund used to go by wire or money order, which took a day and gave a teller a chance to ask a question. Now it goes by Zelle or Cash App in seconds, and once it is gone, it does not come back.
This one hits small contractors, childcare providers, and nonprofits taking donations hard. The rule is simple. No honest customer overpays and asks for the change. And “available” isn’t the same as “collected.” Ask your bank which one it means before you send anything.
3. Tech support, now using the same software your IT person uses
The old version: a cold call, a claim to be from Microsoft, a story about a virus they detected on your computer.
The new version turns that around. Your browser locks up on a page with an alarm sound and a phone number, and you call them. Then they walk you through installing a remote-access program. Not malware. The actual product your IT company uses. Nothing gets flagged, because nothing installed is wrong.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center logged $2.13 billion in tech support losses in 2025 across 47,794 complaints. More than 21,000 of those victims were over 60, and their share of the money came to $1.04 billion.
Microsoft does not call you. Apple does not call you. Your bank’s fraud department does not ask for gift cards. And nobody who called you gets to see your screen.
4. The bogus invoice, now on the right letterhead
Scams like this arrive almost every day. The old version: an envelope arrives at city hall billing for toner nobody ordered, priced low enough that a busy person signs it.
The new version does not bother inventing a vendor. The invoice is real, and the vendor is real. Only the bank account has changed. The email comes from a domain one letter off from the one you know, and the writing is clean now, because software wrote it.
This is business email compromise, and it took $3.046 billion in 2025 from only 24,768 complaints. That is more than $120,000 per report. It is not a volume crime. It is a small number of very good hits.
Make one rule and never bend it. Any change to payment details gets verified by phone, on a number you had before the email arrived, by a second person. Never by replying.
5. The lonely-hearts letter, now with a trading screen
The old version: a correspondence, a hard-luck story, a request for money.
The new version asks for nothing for months. Then it mentions a relative who did well in crypto, and an offer follows to show you how. The site looks professional. Your balance climbs. When you try to withdraw, they charge a fee, then a tax, then go silent.
Confidence and romance fraud cost Americans $929 million last year. Investment fraud, where many of those conversations end up, cost $8.65 billion.
Nevertheless, nobody you have not met in person should be teaching you how to invest. And a platform you cannot withdraw a small amount from is not a platform.
What runs through all five scams
Reported losses to the IC3 passed $20.8 billion in 2025, across more than a million complaints for the first time. People over 60 accounted for $7.75 billion of that.
Not one of these five required the criminal to invent anything. Voice cloning, instant payments, remote-access software, and lookalike domains were all built for ordinary reasons by ordinary companies. The con is the same one your grandmother was warned about. Technology made it cheaper to run, faster to settle, and harder to see coming.
Which means the defense is the same defense, and almost none of it is technical. Verify on a channel the other side did not choose. Call the number you already had. Say the family word. Wait for the bank to say “collected.” None of it costs a dollar, and all of it survives whatever gets invented next.
If you would like to walk your staff, your council, or your congregation through these in half an hour, we are at 502-234-5554.
In fact, a criminal does not need a new idea. He needs a new way to deliver an old one, and we keep handing him those.