The financial and emotional fallout of impersonation scams

Melgorithm

By Mel Migriño

I spent the Halloween traveling to the southern part of Manila. Enjoyed the greeneries during the long and relaxing drive. Such a calming time for me as if nature is giving some time to heal… When I reached my destination, I met a middle-aged woman who was crying at one corner of the hallway leading to the reception.

She was looking at a printed copy of what seemed to be a hotel confirmation.

Something in me prompted that I needed to ask and extend help to her so when I finally got my key card, I went to the woman and tried to comfort her. I asked what happened and how I can be of help. She said she paid about P40,000 for a fake hotel confirmation.

This Halloween break is supposed to be a celebration for an upcoming birthday of her mother. Like everyone in the family, they were looking forward to get to this place to relax and enjoy while she was there crying, left with minimal balance in her credit card as she paid for the balance of the tuition fee of her younger sister for college.

I happen to know the owner of the place, so I called the owner and asked how they could potentially extend help to the family whose members are patiently waiting in the lobby.

In the end, the hotel owner gave them some considerations to stay and at least cover for the following day and get through a simple life celebration. As I walked to my room, I somehow felt relieved but thinking about this modus operandi of scammers, it made me think more of enforcing our advocacy to fight against scams through expanding our digital reach.

Indeed, the core of modern cyber fraud is deception, and one of the devastating attacks today is characterized by third-party impersonation and scams, where criminals meticulously mimic trusted entities to manipulate victims.

These sophisticated scams exploit the foundation of digital commerce: the trust consumers and businesses place in familiar brands, financial services institutions, and government agencies.

By cloning official websites, spoofing legitimate email domains, or using branding in convincing phishing messages, scammers create a false sense of security that encourages immediate compliance.

This level of deception transforms the risk environment, making the simple act of clicking a link or answering a customer support message a potentially devastating financial gamble.

Impersonation scams are not new; they began long before the internet with the simple “confidence man” and later evolved into the Nigerian Prince email scams. However, the modern version is far more scalable and deceptive. The shift began with generic phishing that targeted mass audiences, relying on awkward grammar and obvious spelling errors. Today, the rise of Generative AI has perfected this deception. Scammers can now clone the brand identity of major companies with pixel-perfect fake websites, spoof legitimate executive emails through Business Email Compromise, and even create deepfake audio of well-known and influential executives and officials. This automation means that what was once a time-intensive, low-volume crime is now a high-volume, highly personalized operation capable of targeting millions instantly.

AI is taking center stage in this as there is a type of deep learning framework that uses two competing neural networks—a generator and a discriminator—to create new and realistic data – this is the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). There are two main components in the GAN which are the Generator, which aims to create new, synthetic data such as a fake face, a fake voice, or a fake text, while the Discriminator acts as a critic, constantly trying to determine if the data it receives is real or fake.

In third party scams, GANs are used to create the convincing digital assets needed for impersonation, replacing crude photo editing with realistic digital identities:

• Synthetic Profiles: Generate hyper-realistic, yet entirely fabricated, profile pictures, background photos, and even short video clips for fake social media and dating profiles. This is crucial for romance scams or creating fake vendor accounts/3rd party impersonation.

• Fake Websites: Can create pixel-perfect fake websites. It can analyze a legitimate bank or brand website and generate a near-identical clone with high resemblance of its design and messaging, making phishing attacks against customers far more convincing.

As these scams continue to scale, the profile of the modern victim is incredibly broad, often including financially savvy individuals and corporate executives. Scammers target people based on vulnerability, not just age. They use information scraped from social media to create a believable scenario that exploits two core human emotions: fear and authority.

They may impersonate a government official to trigger fear of immediate legal action or commit bank fraud to create panic about a compromised account. These tactics create an emotional pressure cooker, forcing the victim to bypass rational thought and comply immediately before they have time to verify the claim through a trusted, independent channel.

The resulting harm from impersonation scams is often catastrophic, moving beyond simple financial loss. Financially, the schemes often demand funds be transferred through untraceable methods like cryptocurrency, gift cards, or wire transfers to “safe accounts,” making recovery virtually impossible. However, the emotional toll is arguably deeper.

Victims of romance scams or deepfake family emergencies often experience profound betrayal, shame, and isolation, as they realize the “trusted entity” or “loved one” they were communicating with was a sophisticated fabrication. This erosion of trust in digital communication, coupled with the financial ruin, can lead to long-term mental health issues and a deep reluctance to engage with online services, creating a lasting barrier to digital participation.

Amidst all of these evolving digital harms, Gogolook, a global TrustTech company, runs its advocacy in the Philippines to protect Filipinos from scams and suspicious online content. Gogolook introduced the Whoscall Digital Mobile Anti-Scam application in the Philippines in August 2023 to detect scams and suspicious calls and URLs, messages, and content enabling Filipinos to boost digital confidence as they navigate and continuously engage in social media platforms and digital services.

Whoscall is truly a mobile anti-scam platform that is continuously innovating to address the threats of the evolving digital landscape. This state-of-the-art anti-scam mobile application is powered by the Filipino community and is 100% FREE to all Filipinos. Whoscall powered by Gogolook is available in Google Play Store and App Store. It takes all walks of life to fight scams; let us continue the collaborative efforts towards a safe environment.