Editorial: Old-school scams pale compared with today's ultra-personal consumer fraud

First announced in 2020, the case against Long Leaf Trading Group could hardly be simpler: A boiler-room operation based in Chicago cold-called unsuspecting marks to push a commodity-trading scheme. Practically all the customers lost money while the traders collected $1.2 million in commissions.

As rip-offs go, that one seems almost nostalgic compared with today’s modern versions of consumer fraud. Sadly, maddeningly, the 2020s have become a golden age of scams. Gone are the poorly worded pitches from supposed Nigerian princes promising riches in the future to anyone sending money now. Instead, artificial intelligence editing makes the pitches sound smooth and natural, and with voice cloning, the delivery can mimic the familiar speech of a celebrity, friend or relative.

Consumer fraud cost Americans a record $10 billion last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and the losses are climbing sharply.

Law enforcement is better equipped to deal with the old-fashioned likes of Long Leaf Trading than the latest high-tech con artists. Artificial intelligence and other new technology make it much more difficult for even die-hard skeptics to protect themselves from misleading robocalls, emails and text messages.

The pitches typically are made even more convincing by including personal information gleaned from social media, data breaches and other Internet sources. The details can incorporate information about where potential victims live, who they know, their occupations, shopping habits and voting records.

Church members might get fake emails from their pastors directing them to buy gift cards. If you date online, beware of romance scams. If you’re looking for a job, yes, scammers target that, too. If someone claiming to be a government official, bank representative or police officer reaches out to you unexpectedly, it could be an imposter.

The social isolation and distrust of institutions prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has made Americans more vulnerable. People who feel lonely, depressed or disconnected make easier marks, research shows, and the country’s divisive politics also can be misused to lower a target’s defenses.

This epidemic of fraud has given rise to a new breed of anti-scammer, similarly tech-savvy and dedicated to baiting and exposing the criminals. Irish scam-buster Jim Browning has more than 4 million subscribers to his YouTube channel. He’s one of several anti-con-artist vigilantes who have attracted impressive online followings.

The Department of Justice and FTC say they have stepped up efforts to protect the public, but the rising losses indicate the crooks are staying a step ahead. Imposter scams, where criminals pretend to be someone trustworthy, are the fastest-growing category of consumer fraud, according to the FTC, and email has replaced text and phone messages as the most frequently reported contact method.

Law enforcement might be a factor in that shift. “Operation Stop Scam Calls,” a crackdown on illegal telemarketing involving federal and state authorities nationwide, has led to enforcement actions against 180 operations responsible for billions of robocalls to U.S. consumers, the FTC said.

The FTC also has brought multiple cases against investment and business-opportunity schemes in the same vein as Long Leaf Trading, which ran afoul of commodity market regulators.

Long Leaf fleeced unsuspecting customers with promises of riches in the fast-moving options markets that Chicago has dominated for years. Predictably, its chief executive had practically no experience with those markets, apart from losing $30,000 on a single trade for his personal account, according to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which earlier this month upheld the fraud part of the regulators’ enforcement case.

Long Leaf claimed its “trading programs” were supposedly poised to yield 6%-12% annual returns. In reality, no one was making money off them — except for the insiders collecting commissions, of course. One customer received a “trade history” that cherry-picked a few transactions Long Leaf had recommended that eked out modest gains, but no one received that set of trade recommendations, and, over the same period, customers racked up six-figure losses.

In bringing its case against Long Leaf, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it is committed to stamping out fraud and urged anyone tempted to say yes when telemarketers reach out with a too-good-to-be-true proposition to instead “exercise caution.”

Thanks for that ever-so-helpful advice, CFTC. In other words, fellow citizens, we’re on our own in a dangerous world.

The best we can do is educate ourselves about the many new types of scams afoot, recognize that all of us are likely to be targeted at one time or another, spread the word to friends and relatives who may not be as vigilant, and report fraud attempts to authorities as they happen. Very smart people often get ensnared.

There’s no hiding from the current epidemic of highly sophisticated consumer fraud personalized just for you. So it’s best to meet it head-on, with eyes open and both hands on your wallet.

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