AI-Powered Impostor Scams Target Minnesota Job Market

Source Domain: www.govtech.com

(TNS) — Workers at Doherty Staffing Solutions were perplexed when strangers started calling the office in response to recruitment texts — texts the firm never sent.

The Minneapolis -based staffing agency soon pieced together what was happening: Fraudsters, posing as Doherty recruiters, were sending fake job ads to individuals in an attempt to extract confidential information from job seekers.

The campaigns were sophisticated and personal.

Such impostor scams, when a criminal pretends to be a legitimate business or even a government official, are proliferating and morphing at an accelerated rate as artificial intelligence makes impersonation easier than ever.

“Generative AI has lowered the cost of producing a convincing fake. Even a website can be put together in a matter of minutes,” said Manjeet Rege, a University of St. Thomas professor and the director of its Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.

“We used to always say, ‘Don’t believe until you see,’” Rege said. “Well, now I would say, don’t believe even if you see, and it looks very, very authentic.”

Impostor scams conned consumers out of $3.5 billion last year, nearly tripling in five years, according to a recent analysis by the Federal Trade Commission. About $1 billion stemmed from people impersonating legitimate businesses, often bankers or government officials.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection, said impostor scams are among “the most pernicious forms of fraud.”

In Minnesota alone last year, the FTC recorded 33,204 fraud reports in total, about $168 million in losses with a median loss of $340. Impostor scams accounted for about 37% of all reports.

Minnesota’s employment market took a major hit during the federal government’s immigration crackdown this winter and is still rebounding. Employment scams, especially in the staffing sector, are occurring across the nation…

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