Leadership is one of the key ingredients to ‘dwindle swindle’ whether it be at a national level as Australia is showing or through major banks like JPMorgan Chase. This world leading bank set up an ambitious program to tackle fraud in November 2025 during International Fraud Awareness Week. It will be interesting to see what they highlight this November.
Based on the 700 branch fraud-fighting event featured here by Banking Dive reporter Gabrielle Saulsbery, they got a head start on what they may be unveiling soon. This inevitably will be employing AI to help them detect and prevent fraud.
JPMorgan to livestream fraud-fighting event to 700 branches
The panel, highlighting scam methodology and the tools that banks and customers can use to fight back, comes as the cost to victims soars, according to Gallup and the FTC.
A Chase bank branch stands in lower Manhattan on January 12, 2024 in New York City. Spencer Platt / Staff via Getty Images
Talking people out of giving their money away to scammers is a regular part of the job for JPMorgan Chase’s front-line bank employees, and the victims aren’t always who some would expect.
“It’s everybody,” said Darius Kingsley, Chase’s head of consumer fraud and scam prevention.
“We always talk about older people, and when they do fall victim to a scam, they lose a lot of money,” Kingsley said. “But it’s equal, if not actually a higher number, as a percentage, of younger people these days.”
Dissuading customers from funding scammers is an everyday occurrence at JPMorgan’s branches, and the bank is leaning into education as a tool to fight back.
JPMorgan Chase was set to livestream a fraud-focused panel Wednesday to roughly 700 branches, during which the bank’s information security chief, Pat Opet; Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary; and Brett Leatherman, the assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, will discuss how AI-enabled impersonation and money movement scams can be spotted, as well as how individuals can strengthen their cyber defenses and protect personal and financial information when using AI tools.
Kingsley will moderate the panel, livestreamed from JPMorgan Chase’s mid-Atlantic regional headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“The problem is the scammers and the scams are getting more and more sophisticated,” Kingsley said in an interview ahead of the event.
Open-source AI models make sham texts and emails much more convincing than the Nigerian prince scams of yesteryear, he said.
“What AI allows you to do is really personalize your messages,” he said. “It’s really, really tough to counter.”
Older Americans are more often targets of romance scams or “pig-butchering” investment scams, while younger Americans tend to fall victim to apartment or employment scams.
In one common scheme, fraudsters will offer a fake product review gig with the caveat that the reviewer – the unknowing victim – buy a $600 Chromebook with a check provided by them.
“They send you a check, except it’s not $600,” Kingsley said. “It’s $2,600, and they immediately send you an email saying, ‘Oh my God, we made a mistake. We misprinted your check. Please, the moment you get it, deposit that check and wire us back $2,000, and then keep the $600 [to] go buy your laptop.’”
But when the victim deposits the check, he said, it bounces; meanwhile, the victim has already wired the $2,000.
“Now there’s no job, and you’re out the $2,000, and maybe your credit score got dinged, which, when you’re young and you’re about to go try to rent an apartment, is not a great thing,” Kingsley said.
Impostor scams cost reported victims $3.5 billion in 2025, the Federal Trade Commission said in June. That’s three times more than in 2020.
Gallup put the number much higher: $68 billion in 2025. Most scam victims lost less than $500, but 5% lost over $10,001, the polling firm reported.
Fraud, Kingsley noted, doesn’t start at the bank. It starts upstream, with a spoof phone call or a fake social media ad. What’s really needed, he said, is for “all the industries to come together to work together to help stop this.”
Lawmakers are trying. Politicians on both sides of the aisle sponsored legislation in February meant to crack down on fraudulent and deceptive advertisements on social media and online platforms. The bill remains pending in committee.
In June, a coalition of government agencies known as the Elder Justice Coordinating Council launched The Never Ever campaign, meant to raise awareness around impostor scams. Partners in the effort include the American Bankers Association, USTelecom, Google and Microsoft.
JPMorgan, like other banks, fights scams using the same AI models scammers do.
Banks are using AI models to map customer payment behavior patterns, and to get “smarter and faster about saying, ‘We really don’t want you to send that out,’ or ‘Are you sure?’” Kingsley said.
The “vast majority of all payments are good, and people actually want to make them. So you’re looking all the time for a needle in a haystack,” he said. “AI will help us do that.”
The threat, he said, is countered by an equal-opposite effort on the bank’s end. Part of the battle is fought with AI, and part with community events.
“Honestly, there’s nothing else like just trying to really get out there and educate people,” Kingsley said.
