How the 'graveyard grift' turns public obituaries into scam scripts #
A grieving widow lost more than $7,000 (£5,200) to scammers who claimed they had helped her late husband cover up tax evasion, in a scheme that used artificial intelligence to single her out through his obituary.
Using AI to comb through published death notices, the fraudsters identified the woman as a recently bereaved target. They told her that, to preserve what was left of her inheritance, she had to pay them. By the time her adult son realised what was happening, the money was gone. Clayton LiaBraaten, senior executive spokesperson at the caller ID firm Truecaller, described the case to USA Today after the son contacted the company for help. Scammers are 'scouring obituaries and looking for vulnerabilities,' he said. 'It's so disgusting, I can barely keep my cool about it.'
The family could not recover the cash. They sealed off the widow's bank accounts, and she now needs approval from one of her adult children before any money leaves them.
Why Obituaries Are a Goldmine for AI Scammers #
A public death notice can contain a spouse's full name, the names of children and grandchildren, a hometown, former employers, schools, military service, and even a church or club. Cross-referenced with social media, those details let a caller sound as though they already know the family.
Threat-intelligence firm Blackbird.AI says scammers increasingly prioritise obituaries from wealthier areas, singling out households likely to hold significant savings and combining the notice with news articles, social media, and professional profiles to sharpen the pitch.
Jennifer Szakaly, founder and chief executive of Caregiving Corner in Charlotte, North Carolina, told Moneywise the timing makes such approaches harder to spot. 'Recently widowed older adults can be especially vulnerable because they're grieving and often dealing with an overwhelming number of financial and administrative tasks at the same time,' she said. A call about an unfamiliar account, she added, 'might not seem unusual given the circumstances.'
LiaBraaten said AI lets criminals research victims, write convincing scripts, and generate deepfake images, voices, and videos, then send phishing calls and texts to thousands of people within minutes. The first contact is not always the sting. 'They may just be gathering personally identifiable information to leverage against you in the future,' he said.
A Record $7.7B Stolen From Older Americans #
Americans aged 60 and over reported $7.7B (£5.7B) in losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2025, according to the agency's annual report, a 59% rise on the previous year. Complaints from that age group topped 201,000, the average loss was about $38,500 (£28,700), and more than 12,400 older victims lost at least $100,000 (£74,600) each.
Investment fraud, much of it involving cryptocurrency, was the single largest category of senior losses at about $3.5B (£2.6B), according to the same report.
AI featured in a growing share of those cases. The FBI logged more than 3,100 complaints from older victims that referenced the technology, with losses above $352M (£263M).
In the UK, people over 61 are among the most likely to be hit by impersonation and investment fraud, and Lloyds Bank put the average loss from an impersonation scam at £5,318 ($7,100) in 2023. More than £600M ($800M) was stolen through fraud across the UK in the first half of 2025, according to UK Finance.
How to Shield a Grieving Relative #
Financial advisers say the safeguards are simple but need to be in place before a call comes. Mike McCulloch, a financial planner at Hunter Associates, told Moneywise that urgency is a common warning sign.
'If someone calls you and asks for personal information, hang up immediately,' he said, adding that people should only give details on a call they have started themselves.
Evan H. Farr, an elder law attorney, said speed matters once money has moved.
He urged victims to contact their bank or card provider at once, ask about freezes or a transaction reversal, and keep every message, number, and payment instruction from the scammer.
Families should also assume a successful target will be hit again, he said, because 'successful victims are highly valued lead sources.'
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