TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa-area woman nearly fell for an AI-powered scam after her phone displayed KJRH’s legitimate news station number.
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Joyce thought someone from KJRH was calling when she answered her phone on Wednesday, and again Friday morning, both times it was actually a scammer spoofing the station’s legitimate phone number.
The scammer was attempting to trick people into answering so they could be conned into revealing their Medicare information.
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Scammers are using artificial intelligence to create deepfakes that impersonate trusted businesses like credit card companies, government agencies, including Medicare, and even television stations.
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2 News Oklahoma’s own Erin Christi got a similar spam call.
“I get a ton of spam calls these days, so it’s really frustrating to get as many as a lot of us are getting. But I was sitting at my desk, and I said, “Why is my old station calling me? It came up as a different station, so I guess we’re not the only station this is happening to,” Christi said.
A new SmartAsset study finds imposter scams are the most common schemes targeting seniors.
“Kind of mind-blowing how close it is to portraying real life or looking real,” Cody Lavigne said.
According to the latest FBI Internet Crime Center report, 24% of older fraud victims say the fraud targeting them started with a phone call, compared to just 10% for younger victims.
The data shows that older adults experience higher financial losses, while younger generations are more likely to be victimized despite greater familiarity with AI.
In 2025 alone, AI-related fraud generated 22,364 complaints and $893 million in losses, according to the FBI IC3 Report. AI-enabled fraud surged 1,210% in 2025, and deepfake incidents increased 4 times over 2024.
Older adults, those 60 and up, suffered $7.7 billion in total losses in 2025, a 59% increase from 2024, with AI-specific losses reaching $352 million from more than 3,100 AI-related complaints. The average loss per incident for older adults was $38,500, nearly double the overall average.
Baby Boomers had the highest financial fraud rate of any generation, with 39% reporting they experienced fraud in the past year. Meanwhile, Gen Z had the highest victimization rate overall, 53% reported losing money to financial scams or fraud, and are 3 times more likely than Baby Boomers to fall for online scams, despite lower levels of concern about AI-powered threats.
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“I’ve been scammed a couple of times, and it’s not fun,” Natosha Kates said.
Scams are also arriving through email. Karen Fuentes described how her workplace receives deceptive emails designed to look like internal company communications.
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“We’ll get emails like, ‘Oh, they’re changing your dress code policy, and it’s not even from our company. They want you to click, which we’ve been warned about,” Fuentes said.
Clicking on links in those messages can take you to fake sites designed to install malware on your devices or steal your information.
If you get scammed, do not feel embarrassed. Scammers count on embarrassment to keep victims quiet. They also hope that if victims do speak up, family and friends will make them feel humiliated for falling for a scheme, discouraging them from reporting it to their financial institution and law enforcement.
Anyone targeted should report the incident to local law enforcement, ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and the Federal Communications Commission if the scam involved a robocall.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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