Fake FTC/FBI Agents and Toll-Text Scams Are Surging Right Now

Scammers Are Posing as the FTC and FBI — Including to 'Recover' Your Losses

The FTC issued a public warning this month after tracking scammers who impersonate its own employees, spoof the agency's real phone number, and even send fake FTC badge photos to convince people their money is at risk. The Federal Trade Commission warns of scammers impersonating the FTC, convincing people to empty their bank accounts under the guise of protecting their funds, using tactics such as spoofing the real FTC phone number and referencing real FTC employees. The agency has been blunt about what it will never do: Scammers are impersonating the FTC. The FTC will never threaten you, say you must transfer money to 'protect it,' or tell you to withdraw cash or buy gold and give it to someone. That's a scam.

Separately, the FBI/IC3 issued an updated alert on July 20 warning that scammers are now using AI deepfakes and spoofed IC3 websites to re-target people who have already been defrauded. Cybercriminals are increasingly using AI-generated deepfakes and spoofed Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) websites to target and re-victimize individuals who have already fallen prey to scams, combining identity impersonation, synthetic media, and phishing. The scammers falsely claim to have recovered lost funds or offer assistance in doing so, aiming to extract additional personal and financial information. This lines up directly with what AVASC is seeing: our incident data shows prior victims being contacted by fake recovery firms and people impersonating the FBI/IC3 promising to recover lost funds for an upfront fee — the FBI has confirmed it does not operate that way.

Toll-Text Scams Keep Rolling — Pennsylvania Just Took Action

The nationwide wave of fake unpaid-toll texts that AVASC flagged in May is still active, and it remains one of the largest imposter categories the FTC tracks. Reports of government imposter scams were up 40%, thanks in part to messages about overdue tolls that spoof real toll collection programs like EZ-Pass, SunPass, FasTrak, and TxTag, threatening late fees or registration suspension if you don't pay right away. Yesterday, Pennsylvania lawmakers moved to close a loophole scammers exploit: the House voted unanimously on a bill that would ban state agencies from using text messages to collect unpaid fines, fees, or tolls, after years of Pennsylvanians being 'inundated with fraudulent text messages from bad actors masquerading as Commonwealth agencies.'

AVASC's own tracking (May 24–July 7) shows the same pattern: mass texts claiming small unpaid tolls, linking to look-alike payment pages built to harvest card and personal data — confirming this is still a live, high-volume threat, not old news.

AI Is Supercharging Romance-Investment ('Pig-Butchering') Losses

Investment fraud — much of it run through AI-assisted romance-investment schemes — remains the single costliest category IC3 tracks. The IC3's 2025 annual report documented more than 1 million complaints with reported losses exceeding $20.877 billion, a 26% increase from the prior year. Within that total, investment fraud remains the primary driver, accounting for nearly 49% of all scam-related losses, with cryptocurrency complaints alone totaling more than $11 billion. This mirrors what AVASC is seeing this period: syndicates using agentic AI to run thousands of simultaneous romance-investment conversations that funnel victims into fake crypto platforms, with per-victim losses frequently reaching five and six figures.