EDITORIAL — ‘Tis the season

Because it’s the season for Christmas bonuses, many of us will have more money than usual. And for this reason, scammers will be looking for more and better ways to part us with our money.

Consider the following recent cases. In Batangas, a woman was arrested after ordering ?33,000 worth of food and drinks online and then showing the merchant a fake screenshot of payment made generated by artificial intelligence.

In Metro Manila, the medical supplier for a hospital was duped by a scammer who used AI to imitate the voice of the hospital director asking for an advance on ?10,000 so they can send aid to people affected by the earthquake in Cebu.

In another case, an old woman was tricked into ordering a wallet that supposedly contained ?50,000 for only ?599. According to the deliver rider, who explained to her that money isn’t ordered online but earned, she wasn’t the only victim.

While the third case may involve someone who is totally unfamiliar with how money or ordering stuff online works, we can say that the first two victims fell victim to a more sophisticated form of scamming.

And this is why we should be careful, not only are scammers getting more inventive with how they fool people; they now have the tools to help them in their “craft”. We can imagine scammers not just using AI to imitate voice, but also using it to generate images and even entire identities that can fool people.

This also shows how many people out there are still vulnerable even to the simplest forms of scams. Urgent; click here! This is important; click there! Your account will be closed if you don’t do this! It would help to educate the most vulnerable members of society --as well as in our own families-- about the dangers lurking online.

While they may be more active this season, there will never be a shortage of scammers trying to cheat people of their hard-earned money; the best any of us can do is to be careful, take all precautions, and arm ourselves with the knowledge of their tricks.

When it comes to being scammed we would really rather not learn the hard way.