Inside America’s top 7 rising fraud hotspots Fraud, scams, hoaxes—however you want to label such malfeasance, it’s been around since humans became social creatures. What’s new, however, is scammers' ability to reach large numbers of potential victims with personalized messages that are optimized to build trust (and steal information). Scammers largely owe this newfound capability to technological advancements, like the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and tools.