You know the old scams. The mysterious prince who needs your bank account number. The vacation you never entered but somehow won. You would never fall for those and you probably never have.
But today’s scams have changed. Some of them are frighteningly convincing. They use real voices, real-looking websites, and real-sounding phone calls. And by the time something feels wrong, it may already be too late.
The folks at Reader’s Digest have put together four real stories of scams that fooled real people, along with the red flags they missed and what you can do to stay safe.
When Grandma Heard Her Granddaughter Crying
Christine, 86, was at home in Philadelphia on a July day in 2025 when the phone rang. She heard what sounded exactly like her granddaughter, sobbing. The voice said she had been hurt in a car crash and was being held by police.
Before Christine could catch her breath, a man calling himself John came on the line. He said he was her granddaughter’s lawyer and needed $10,400 to get her out of jail. Christine told him she only had $6,000 in cash. That would do, he said. He kept her on the phone while someone came to her door to collect the money.
Minutes after the man left with the cash, Christine’s grandson (who lives next door) showed up. Her granddaughter was perfectly fine. Christine had been the victim of a voice-cloning scam, as NBC10 reported. Scammers had used AI to copy her granddaughter’s voice from social media recordings.
What to do: Pick a secret code word with your family, something only real relatives would know. Ask whoever is calling a personal question. If they cannot answer it, hang up. And never send money because of a phone call alone, no matter how real the voice sounds.
NBC also recommends staying quiet when you answer suspicious calls. Even ten seconds of your voice may give scammers enough audio to clone it. Do not say anything, not even hello.
The Soldier Who Never Was
Stolen valor is the term for when someone lies about military service to gain respect or benefits meant for real veterans. It is not new, but it is still happening.
MPR News reported that just last year, a Minnesota man was convicted of falsely claiming to be a wounded Marine and prisoner of war. He received over $100,000 in benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs as a result.
One of the most detailed cases involves a Florida man named Jackie Stern. After moving to Fort Lauderdale in 1989, Stern told neighbors he was a Purple Heart recipient and a prisoner of war during the Korean conflict. In 1991, he showed up to greet Gulf War veterans while wearing what he claimed was a Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military honor given by the United States. He said he had earned it for heroism.
In reality, the Orlando Sentinel reported, it was an unauthorized medal he had bought for $500 at a military memorabilia show in New Jersey. Stern also told Broward County detectives he had been a New York City police detective. He was actually a truck driver.
A detective became suspicious and discovered there was no record of Stern receiving the Medal of Honor. He tricked Stern into coming to the station for photographs with the medal, where an FBI agent arrested him. Stern had served in the military but had never seen combat.
He was fined $250, sentenced to a year of probation and 250 hours of community service at a Veterans Administration hospital. He also had to publish an apology in his local paper on Memorial Day and write letters of apology to all 171 living Medal of Honor recipients at the time.
What to do: USAMM.com, a veteran-owned retailer specializing in military medals and gear, notes that red flags include errors on a uniform, stories that do not add up, over-the-top claims, and a lack of basic military knowledge. The National Archives cautions that lying about military service is only a crime when someone uses those lies to obtain money or property.
A Dream Vacation That Vanished
Santiago Machado of South Florida got a phone call offering something wonderful. A weeklong stay at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic: three rooms, flights included, for his whole extended family. All for $6,000.
It sounded real to him. A friend had a Hard Rock membership. Maybe he had referred Machado? And the idea of surprising his mother in Cuba, who had never flown before, made it feel like the right thing to do.
Machado told his family and friends. They all sent money and passport information to the so-called hotel representatives. But when some of them tried to adjust their arrival times, no one at the hotel or airline had any record of their reservations. When Machado tried to reach the sellers, NBC Miami reported, they laughed at him.
He lost $6,000. His family in Cuba wept when he told them the vacation was gone. And because passports and personal photos had been shared, there was now also a risk of identity theft, according to the report.
What to do: Navy Federal Credit Union suggests you verify that a hotel or rental actually exists before paying anything. Look it up on Google Maps Street View and compare it to the listing photos. Call the property directly to confirm your reservation. And never pay by wire transfer, prepaid card, gift card, or apps like Venmo; those payments are nearly impossible to reverse. Better Business Bureau spokesperson Cinthya Lavin said to use a credit card instead, which offers more protections.
A Pop-Up That Cost Nearly $1 Million
Jeanette Voss, a Vermont retiree, was watching a movie on her laptop over Memorial Day weekend in 2021 when her computer suddenly blared a loud noise and a pop-up filled the screen. The message told her to call Microsoft.
She called. As she told AARP, the person who answered got the noise to stop, then passed her to more specialists, including one who claimed to be from her bank. That person told her scammers had placed a gambling bet of $213,000 in her name and that hackers had her Social Security number.
Over the next six months, as Seven Days, Voss was talked into moving nearly $950,000 (her retirement savings and stocks) into online accounts and cryptocurrency wallets for what she was told was safekeeping. She used a prepaid cellphone the whole time because her own phone had supposedly been compromised. Then the calls stopped and the money was gone.
The loss forced her to live on Social Security checks alone. She cut back on groceries, unplugged appliances to save money, and had to miss a funeral because she could not afford to travel. She spent her days with the birds and squirrels outside her window. Her life, she told Seven Days, became one of unrelenting stress.
Then came a rare piece of good news. In December 2025, Secret Service agents traced her funds to a cryptocurrency account linked to an international scam ring. The government seized the account, sold the tokens, and compensated Voss. To celebrate, she bought groceries for herself and for the birds and squirrels that she said had kept her sane.
What to do: Fraud expert Doug Shadel told Seven Days that pop-ups like this are often accidentally downloaded when someone clicks an ad on a site like Facebook. If one appears on your screen, Microsoft says to close your browser immediately. If it will not close, restart your computer. No major tech company will ever ask you to pay via cryptocurrency or gift cards, or provide a phone number through a pop-up window.
One More Thing Worth Remembering
None of these people were careless. They were trusting. They were loving. They were doing what any of us might do.
The best protection is knowing these scams exist. Set a secret family code word. Verify before you pay. Close any scary pop-up and never call the number it shows you. And if someone tells you to keep a financial matter secret from your family, that is the clearest warning sign of all.
