404 Media – The Age of Realtime Deepfake Fraud Is Here Joseph Cox · Apr 28, 2025 at 9:00 AM The bearded man, however, doesn’t really exist. Instead, he is a realtime deepfake created by a fraudster, likely to lure the woman as part of a romance scam and have her send money. Someone filming the interaction captures what is really happening: a young Black man is sitting in front of a laptop and webcam, and software is then automatically transforming his appearance to that of the much older white man and feeding that into Skype, all live. Other realtime deepfakes from fraudsters include a Black man making himself appear as a white woman, and many cases of scammers being able to hold objects during the live call without breaking the illusion. One deepfake scammer even included an American flag in the background of their live video call.
Look after your seniors, since widowed elders are the most targeted market for a lot of these scams because they’re considered vulnerable, not tech savvy, and with enough wealth to make the effort worth it for the scammers.