You’d never fall for a scam, right? You know better than to send money to a mysterious prince (or princess), click a link promising you’ve won a vacation you never entered, or hand over your password to a stranger. Easy enough. Except today’s scams aren’t always that obvious. Some look, sound and feel so convincing that even the savviest among us could be fooled, and by the time you realize something’s off, the scammer may already have what they came for.
That’s why we’re sharing true stories of the sneakiest scams that tricked people—and could lure you in too if you don’t know what to look for. We’ll tell you what happened, highlight the red flags they missed and note the steps you can take to protect yourself in a similar situation.
Read on for the real-life scams that seem surprisingly legit, plus how to spot them before you become a cautionary tale for someone else.
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Voice-cloning scam
The fake-out
It was a sultry July day in 2025, and Christine, 86, was enjoying the air conditioning in her Philadelphia home, surrounded by photographs of her loved ones. When the phone rang, displaying a number she didn’t recognize, she answered and heard a sound no grandparent should ever be subjected to: her granddaughter’s sobs.
“What’s the matter, hon?” Christine asked. Her anguished “granddaughter,” according to NBC10, replied that she’d been injured in a car crash and was being detained by police. Before Christine could fully process the horrifying news, a new speaker joined the conversation, introducing himself as “John,” her granddaughter’s lawyer. He said he needed $10,400 to get her granddaughter out of jail. Christine said she only had $6,000 on hand in cash. That would have to do, said John. He told her he would send a car over immediately to pick it up, then kept her on the phone while another man arrived a little later for the money.
Minutes after that man left with the cash in hand, Christine’s grandson, who lives next door, showed up at her house. That’s when she learned the good news: Her granddaughter was, in fact, fine. She also learned some bad news: She had just become another victim of AI-assisted voice cloning.
How to spot it
Not so long ago, it was easier to spot scammers by their voices. If they sounded like impostors or recordings, you could simply hang up the phone and go about your day. Not anymore. With just a few recorded words, scammers can use AI to replicate someone’s voice and convince even family members that a loved one is in danger. The process is called voice cloning, and it’s frighteningly simple. As Christine’s granddaughter told NBC10, “It’s not hard to find something of my voice. I’m on social media.”
To protect against this, NBC recommends that you choose a security word with your family or that you ask whomever you’re talking to a question that “only a family member would know the answer to.” If that person doesn’t respond correctly, you might be talking to someone else.
If the voice on the line tells you to go buy an app or a gift card or wants payment in cryptocurrency, hang up immediately. Scammers are partial to crypto because transactions are quick, irreversible and lack the built-in protections offered by banks.
You can protect your own identity by staying quiet whenever taking suspicious or unsolicited phone calls. Don’t bother saying “Hello” (which confirms your number as active). And don’t ask to be removed from call lists, as even 10 seconds of audio may be all that the scammers need to con your family.
Stolen-valor scam
The fake-out
In an era of disinformation, stolen valor is a particularly odious scam. It’s what happens when someone lies about or misrepresents their military service to garner respect or other benefits reserved for actual heroes. Just last year, MPR News reported that a Minnesota man had been convicted of passing himself off as a wounded Marine and prisoner of war to garner over $100,000 in benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Stolen valor is not new. Among the most famous cases is one involving Jackie Stern, who wove a web of lies that began soon after he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from the New York City area in 1989. His former neighbor Alberto Lopez told the Tampa Bay Times that Stern let everyone know he’d been a Purple Heart recipient and a POW during the Korean conflict. “Out of respect for the guy, you let him talk,” said Lopez.
Stern spun his yarns and eventually greeted veterans returning home from the Gulf War in 1991 while wearing the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States. Stern claimed he’d received it for heroism. In reality, the award had been an unauthorized medal that Stern had purchased for $500 at a military memorabilia show in New Jersey, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Stern’s lies knew no bounds. He even bragged to Broward County detectives that he’d been a New York City police detective, although he was actually a truck driver. That may have been his undoing. Detective Sgt. Daniel Ciacciarelli received a tip about a Medal of Honor stolen from the New York City area around the time Stern had arrived in Florida. Having always thought Stern was a bit of a blowhard, he checked with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and learned there was no record of Stern receiving the honor. The detective concocted a plan. He tricked Stern into coming down to the station to pose for photographs with the medal, where he was arrested by a waiting FBI agent. It turned out that Stern, although he had served in the military, had never seen a day of combat.
For wearing an unearned military decoration and illegally modifying his official record with the Army, Stern was fined $250 and sentenced to a year on probation and 250 hours of community service at a Veterans Administration hospital. He also had to print an apology in his local newspaper for Memorial Day and—most creatively—write letters of apology to all 171 living Medal of Honor recipients at the time.
Stern admitted to the court that his goal was “personal and selfish,” reported the Orlando Sentinel, and added that he had wanted his children “to believe their father was a hero.”
How to spot it
According to USAMM.com, a veteran-owned retailer specializing in military medals and gear, indicators that point toward unearned medals include errors on the fraudster’s uniform, stories that don’t add up, over-the-top tales and a lack of knowledge of basic military jargon.
The National Archives cautions that lying about one’s military service is not necessarily illegal. It’s only a crime if someone lies about receiving certain medals to “obtain money, property or some other tangible benefit.” However, attempting to support these lies through forged documents, as Stern did, will likely violate separate laws.
Vacation scam
The fake-out
Santiago Machado could not believe what he was hearing: a weeklong stay at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, for him and his extended family, for only $6,000—flights and three rooms included.
Machado, from South Florida, might have declined such telephone offers in the past, but this one sounded genuine. His friend enjoyed a Hard Rock membership, he told NBC Miami. Perhaps he had recommended Machado? The idea of a group vacation also hooked him. His mother in Cuba had never boarded an airplane before. What a nice surprise this would make!
Machado shared the news with his family and friends. Shortly after, they, too, were sending money and passport information to so-called representatives of the hotel. They were all set to go. But when some of Machado’s friends tried to change their arrival times, they found that no one at the hotel or the airline had any record of their reservations.
Outraged, Machado tried contacting the people who had sold him the package. But when he finally got through, “they were laughing,” he said.
Machado was out the $6,000. But there was also a new risk of identity theft since their personal information, passports and pictures had been shared as well. If that wasn’t enough, he now had to tell his mother and other family members in Cuba that the vacation was off. “[They all] cried when we told them … that it was all a scam and that we had lost the money,” Machado told Telemundo 51.
How to spot it
Machado’s first mistake was being too trusting. As the saying goes, if it looks too good to be true, chances are it is. In this case, looking online reveals that three rooms for three days at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana alone—without airfare—could run close to $6,000. Aside from an oddly cheap price, any typos or peculiar word choices in your exchanges with the “owners” should also make you think twice. Legit operations tend to know how to spell.
Before you put down a deposit, Navy Federal Credit Union suggests you make sure the hotel or vacation rental actually exists. You can do that by looking it up using Google Maps Street View and checking whether the property matches the picture in the listing, and by calling the front desk to verify the information if it’s a resort or hotel.
And never pay for a vacation rental by wire transfer, prepaid card, gift cards or apps like Venmo, as these payment methods aren’t easily reversible. Instead, Better Business Bureau spokesperson Cinthya Lavin told NBC Miami, pay with a credit card, which offers some protections.
Tech-support scam
The fake-out
Jeanette Voss, a retiree in Vermont, had her 2021 Memorial Day Weekend all planned out. And part of it would be spent watching a movie on her laptop. However, halfway into the film, a “screaming noise” blared from her computer, and then a pop-up filled the screen. The message was clear enough, she told AARP: “Call Microsoft. Call Microsoft.”
Voss picked up her phone and called the number on the screen, assuming she’d be connected to a Microsoft specialist. After getting the noise to stop, the “specialist” passed Voss on to more specialists, one supposedly from her financial institution. Yet another came on and told her, “We can see where you made a gambling bet of $213,000.”
“I most certainly did not,” she replied. She then heard those words that you never want to hear in the same sentence: hackers and Social Security number. Voss’s movie night was ruined.
The man explained they would need to transfer all her assets into a “secure digital wallet” for safekeeping, she told Seven Days, a Vermont newspaper. In the meantime, the man warned, “trust no one.” Jeanette agreed, and over the next six months she spoke repeatedly to two men, using a prepaid cellphone because hers was “compromised.”
All of Voss’s assets, including retirement savings and stocks that she had carefully managed for years, were moved with her assistance into online accounts and cryptocurrency wallets that totaled nearly $950,000. And then the conversations ended and the money was gone.The loss was life-changing, forcing Voss to completely alter her spending habits. All she had to live on were her monthly Social Security checks, which were barely enough to make ends meet. She cut back on groceries, unplugged devices when she wasn’t using them and had to miss a funeral because of travel costs. She became isolated, spending her days just with the birds and squirrels outside her door. Her life, she told Seven Days, was one of “unrelenting stress.”
But then, a miracle. Four and a half years later, in December 2025, Voss found out that Secret Service agents had traced her funds to a cryptocurrency account associated with a man involved in an international scam ring, Vermont Public Radio reported: “After seizing the crypto wallet, government officials sold the tokens in order to compensate Voss.” It was a rare victory for the good guys against the dark web. To celebrate, Voss bought groceries for herself, and for the birds and squirrels that “kept me sane.”
How to spot it
The fake alert that so alarmed Voss was likely accidentally downloaded days or even weeks earlier when she clicked on an ad in, say, Facebook, Doug Shadel, a fraud expert, told Seven Days. When “this pop-up occurs with a phone number to call and sirens going off, you call the number because you’re panicked,” he explained. If this should happen to you, Microsoft says to immediately close your browser. If it won’t close, restart your computer.
Still unnerved? Keep in mind that tech companies like Microsoft usually direct users to official websites and support pages, never to phone numbers provided in pop-up windows. Also, no major computer company will ever request that you pay them via cryptocurrency or gift cards.
And always remember: While there are some wonderful things about the internet (funny beagle videos, obviously!), there are also questionable characters lurking about waiting for you to inadvertently hit the wrong link. So be skeptical if someone asks for personal information or offers you a deal that’s too good to be true. It probably is.
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Reader’s Digest has published hundreds of articles on personal technology, arming readers with the knowledge to protect themselves against cybersecurity threats and internet scams as well as revealing the best tips, tricks and shortcuts for computers, cellphones, apps, texting, social media and more. We rely on credentialed experts with personal experience and know-how as well as primary sources including tech companies, professional organizations and academic institutions. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
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