The anatomy of a scam: Staying protected in the AI age 

You've probably received it - a message, a call or an email. Something that felt off and you ignored it. But what if the most dangerous scams are the ones you don’t see coming? 

Some scams we have become familiar headlines: the Enkeltrick call that empties a grandparent’s savings in Germany, the hijo SMS that panics a parent in Spain. Despite greater awareness, these scams continue to affect thousands of consumers every year. But across Europe, a different threat is taking hold. The generation often most digitally confident, young people who have grown up online, are losing significant sums, and in some cases are being recruited into crime. 

For the first time on the IFA stage, SquareTrade Europe, an Allstate company, brings together a former fraudster, industry leaders and consumer experts to explore how today’s scams are evolving – and why traditional assumptions about who is at risk no longer hold true. Scams are increasingly reaching young people on the social platforms they use and trust every day, AI is being deployed to deceive at a scale and sophistication never seen before, and some are even being unknowingly recruited as money mules. In Germany, victims lose close to €700 per incident, few who report it to the authorities ever see it resolved, and protection that can cover them is harder still to come by. 

So how did we get here, and where is it heading? 

At the heart of this conversation is Alex Wood, a former fraudster turned counter-fraud advisor whose criminal career generated an estimated €60 million in fraud before going on to advise governments, financial regulators and leading financial institutions across Europe on combating emerging cyber threats. Alongside industry leaders from Germany’s largest electronics retailer, this is a conversation that will go beyond headlines – giving attendees a rare firsthand view of the new risk landscape and what it takes to stay ahead of it.