This Week in Scams: Recovery Scams, Toll Texts, AI Romance Fraud

If you've already been scammed, watch for the 'second hit': fake recovery services

AVASC's database has been tracking a rise in fake fund-recovery services and people impersonating the FBI or its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), contacting prior victims and promising to recover lost money for an upfront fee. This week, the FBI put out an official warning confirming the same pattern nationally. In a public service announcement issued July 20, 2026, the FBI said the alert highlights a significant escalation in recovery scam tactics, where cybercriminals exploit individuals who have already suffered financial losses, often contacting victims via email, phone calls, or social media after they indicate an intent to report prior fraud, with threat actors posing as law enforcement and claiming they can help recover lost funds.

The scheme now includes convincing fake websites. A central part of the campaign involves fraudulent websites designed to closely mimic the official IC3 portal, replicating its branding and layout while presenting a simplified form that requests name, contact information, scam type, and estimated loss. After submission, victims receive a fake reference number and are told they'll be contacted by authorities, but in reality the submitted data is harvested for further exploitation, identity theft, or additional fraud.

Some versions now use AI. The bureau says scammers have picked up new tricks, including AI-generated video of FBI officials and spoofed versions of the IC3 website itself. The core rule stays the same regardless of how convincing the outreach looks: the IC3 does not maintain social media accounts, does not initiate direct contact via phone, email, or messaging apps, does not offer fund recovery services, and never requests payment or refers victims to third parties for recovery.

This one deserves extra weight because of who it targets. It is a particularly dangerous form of fraud because the criminals target people who are already known to have suffered a financial loss, so a second contact claiming it can recover funds should be treated as a scam unless independently verified through official channels. If you need help filing a report and are 60 or older, the Department of Justice's Elder Justice Hotline is available at 1-833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311).

Toll-road text scams keep resurfacing nationwide

AVASC has continued to log a nationwide unpaid-toll smishing wave impersonating toll agencies, and this matches what state transportation departments and attorneys general are reporting. Illinois's DOT put out a plain warning that a current text message smishing scam claims recipients owe money associated with traffic tickets, tolls and other fines, and that these are not legitimate messages from the department.

Michigan's Attorney General flagged a newer variation using fake court notices: recent scam messages have included an image claiming to be a 'Notice of Civil Infraction Hearing' that falsely claims to be from a district court, warning that recipients must appear in person or pay a penalty before the hearing date, with a QR code leading to a deceptive website. Toll agencies have been consistent on one point: legitimate agencies don't operate this way. Massachusetts's tolling authority, for example, stated that EZDriveMA will never request payment by text, and that all legitimate links associated with the agency will include its official web address.

'Task' job scams are draining people who can least afford it

AVASC's incident data shows fake remote 'task' jobs, such as product ratings or app reviews, that pay small amounts before engineering a fabricated negative balance, pressuring workers to deposit their own money to unlock earnings that never arrive. Federal and industry data show this is a national growth story, not an isolated pattern. The FTC reports that incidents of job scams nearly tripled between 2020 and 2024, with consumer losses rising from $90 million to $501 million. Task scams specifically are the fastest-growing slice: the FTC saw a 400% increase in task scams in 2024, and median losses in BBB Scam Tracker data hit $2,300 in 2025.

The mechanics match what our database is seeing almost exactly. The single defining feature of a task scam is money flowing the wrong way: the moment a job requires a 'recharge,' 'unlock fee,' 'tax,' 'VIP upgrade,' or any crypto deposit to access your own earnings, the job does not exist, because no legitimate employer ever charges you to be paid. Importantly, an early successful payout doesn't mean the job is real. Early payouts prove nothing; scammers happily spend a small amount to harvest much larger sums, and a small successful withdrawal is a scripted part of the scheme, not evidence of legitimacy.

AI is making romance-investment ('pig butchering') scams more convincing and more costly

AVASC has flagged a ring using AI to run mass romance-investment cons, with syndicates maintaining thousands of simultaneous conversations that funnel victims toward fake crypto platforms. Outside reporting describes the same shift toward automation: where scammers once manually managed dozens of conversations at once, criminal syndicates now use agentic AI to automate the grooming process, with AI agents able to maintain thousands of deep, personalized relationships simultaneously.

The losses are substantial and growing. According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, cryptocurrency-related fraud caused over $11 billion in losses in 2025, making crypto investment scams one of the largest sources of online financial crime. Separately, blockchain analysis found that cryptocurrency addresses associated with pig butchering operations received over $9.3 billion in 2025, with the average victim losing about $178,000 before the fraud was detected or reported.

There is a bright spot: law enforcement disruption has picked up sharply. An FBI-Secret Service proactive outreach effort has had real impact. Operation Level Up, established in January 2024, had by March 2026 notified 8,935 victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud, 77% of whom were unaware they were being scammed, saving an estimated $562 million. The clearest protective signal remains the same one AVASC has emphasized for months: if your introduction to a crypto 'opportunity' came through a romance or friendship that started in your messages, treat it as a scam until proven otherwise.

Government-impersonation calls remain the most common complaint

AVASC continues to see high volumes of callers posing as IRS, SSA, FTC, or police, threatening arrest or frozen accounts and demanding immediate payment by gift card, wire, or cryptocurrency. This tracks with the broader federal picture: government-impersonation fraud remains a top category by complaint volume, and overall reported losses keep climbing. 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. Older adults continue to bear the brunt: victims aged 60 and older reported the highest losses nationally, exceeding $7.7 billion in 2025.

World Cup aftermath: ticket and merchandise scams didn't stop when the final whistle blew

AVASC saw spoofed ticket sites and fake peer-to-peer resale listings targeting fans throughout the tournament, and the FBI's warnings tracked the same activity from kickoff through the final. The FBI identified at least 36 fraudulent domains spoofing legitimate FIFA websites, many advertising fake tickets, official merchandise, and travel packages while harvesting personal and financial data. Even close to the final, new losses were still being reported, including one Indianapolis fan who lost $22,000 to a World Cup 2026 ticket scam after the seller vanished without delivering a single ticket. With the tournament now concluded, expect a wind-down wave of scams offering 'leftover' merchandise, refunds, or highlight-reel downloads, using the same spoofing and urgency tactics repackaged for the post-event news cycle.