The FBI issued a national holiday-season advisory warning that scammers are using AI tools like voice cloning and synthetic images to intensify family‑emergency, romance, tech‑support and other frauds. The bureau urged victims to report incidents to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and to "stop and assess" before sending money or sharing credentials.

The FBI released a national advisory reminding Americans that holiday-season scammers are ramping up pressure tactics and increasingly rely on AI-enabled tools to deceive victims. The bureau highlighted that complaints involving AI technologies to IC3 exceeded 9,000 in the first seven months of 2025 and described common schemes including family‑emergency impersonations, romance frauds, and faux tech‑support incidents that use voice cloning, fake images or videos, and synthetic profiles. The advisory emphasizes simple prevention steps: verify requests using known phone numbers or separate channels, resist urgency and threats, preserve communications for investigators, and report attempted fraud to IC3. It also recommends technical hygiene such as enabling multifactor authentication, using unique passwords, scrutinizing links and attachments, and consulting trusted contacts before sending money or sharing account credentials. The FBI framed the guidance as a mix of common sense and rapid reporting to help law enforcement identify trends and disrupt scammers operating across state and international lines during the busy shopping season.