This Week in Scams: Tolls, Recovery Cons, and AI Romance Fraud

Imposter scams remain the #1 threat — and tolls are a big reason why

Federal Trade Commission data confirm what AVASC's caseload has shown for months: impersonation scams are the most reported fraud category by far. The FTC found that people reported imposter scams more than any other fraud category in 2025—nearly one in three fraud reports were about imposter scams. Reported losses to this category alone reached $3.5 billion.

A major driver of the increase is the toll-text wave AVASC has also been tracking since May. The FTC reports that government imposter scams were up 40%, thanks in part to messages about overdue tolls, with scammers spoofing real toll programs like EZ-Pass, SunPass, FasTrak, and TxTag to appear credible.

This matches AVASC's own incident data: our database has logged a nationwide unpaid-toll smishing wave impersonating toll agencies since late May, with mass text campaigns claiming small unpaid tolls and linking to look-alike payment pages that harvest card and personal data.

Toll-text scams: multiple states issue fresh warnings

State officials continue to sound the alarm on toll smishing. Michigan's Attorney General reissued consumer alerts after flagging a new version of the scam that uses a fake image of a "Notice of Civil Infraction Hearing" impersonating a district court over an unpaid toll. Illinois' Department of Transportation similarly confirmed that a current text message smishing scam claims recipients owe money associated with traffic tickets, tolls and other fines.

Louisiana's Attorney General posted a personal warning after receiving one of the fake texts herself, writing simply: "It is a SCAM," after receiving a message purporting to be from the state's GeauxPass toll system. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont transportation officials have issued nearly identical warnings, underscoring that toll agencies will not text you demanding immediate payment.

New this period: scammers are impersonating the FBI's own fraud-reporting system

On July 20, 2026, the FBI issued a Public Service Announcement warning that criminals are impersonating FBI personnel and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to re-target people who have already lost money to fraud. The bureau says almost all complainants indicated the scammers claimed to have recovered the victim's lost funds or offered to assist in recovering funds, and that the claim is a ruse to revictimize those who have already lost money to scams.

The scheme now uses AI-generated deepfake videos of senior officials and spoofed lookalike websites mimicking ic3.gov to collect basic personal details before promising follow-up contact that never delivers real recovery. As Phoenix FBI representative Troy Cofer put it, "People are revictimizing people that were already victimized," adding that artificial intelligence is driving much of the scheme.

The FBI is direct about what it will never do: IC3 does not have social media accounts, does not communicate with victims through messaging apps, and never charges fees to recover stolen money. This closely tracks a pattern AVASC has been watching since mid-June, in which prior scam victims are contacted by fake recovery firms and people impersonating the FBI/IC3 promising to recover lost funds for an upfront fee.

AI is supercharging romance-investment ("pig butchering") scams

AVASC's data this period shows syndicates using agentic AI to run thousands of simultaneous romance-investment conversations that funnel victims into fake crypto platforms, with losses per victim frequently reaching five and six figures. External reporting backs this up at scale: according to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), cryptocurrency-related fraud caused over $11 billion in losses in 2025, and reported losses from AI-assisted scams accounted for almost $893 million.

Blockchain-analysis firm Chainalysis found that cryptocurrency addresses associated with pig butchering operations received over USD 9.3 billion in 2025, with the average victim losing USD 178,000 before the fraud was detected or reported. The pattern is consistent: a stranger builds a relationship online, then introduces a "can't-lose" investment platform. As one fraud-recovery resource summarized the core warning sign, "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."

Fake FIFA World Cup ticket sites still catching fans off guard

The FBI's May 27, 2026 advisory remains highly relevant: the bureau warned that cyber threat actors are conducting spoofing attacks against the FIFA website, explaining that a spoofed website is designed to pose as a legitimate website, with branding, product listings, etc., used to further personal information theft and monetary scams. Dozens of lookalike domains have since been identified.

The human cost is real: one Indianapolis fan lost $22,000 to a World Cup 2026 ticket scammer after paying a self-described marketing contact via peer-to-peer transfers for tickets that never arrived. In response, the FTC issued a formal consumer alert warning fans to purchase only through official channels – FIFA.com/tickets, the FIFA app, or FIFA's Resale and Exchange Marketplace. This mirrors AVASC's own tracking of spoofed ticket sites and fake resale listings around major events.

What we're seeing: task-based "job" scams targeting financially struggling workers

AVASC's own case data continues to flag fake remote "task" jobs — product rating, app-review gigs, and similar offers — that pay small amounts before engineering a negative account balance, then pressure the worker to deposit their own funds to "unlock" earnings that never materialize. This scheme has been active in our database since mid-June and remains one of the more financially devastating patterns we're seeing because it specifically targets people already under financial strain.