HASTINGS, Minn., Fraud can arrive as a phone call from a frightened grandchild, an email that appears to come from a bank, a check from a new employer, an online bargain that looks too good to pass up or even a $100 bill that does not quite look right.
The details change, but many successful scams have one thing in common, they convince the victim to act before taking time to think.
That was a central message from Tony Ingram and Ashley Wood of Premier Bank Minnesota's Hastings branch during a recent presentation to the Hastings Rotary Club. Ingram, a loan officer, and Wood, the branch operations supervisor, walked members through counterfeit currency, online fraud, fake checks, grandparent scams and steps people can take to protect their money.
The problem is substantial and growing. The Federal Trade Commission said consumers reported losing about $16 billion to fraud in 2025, the highest amount on record and roughly 25 percent more than in 2024. Imposter scams alone accounted for $3.5 billion in reported losses.
A separate FBI reporting system recorded more than $20.8 billion in reported internet-crime losses during 2025. Minnesota residents accounted for nearly $249 million of those losses. The FTC and FBI figures come from different complaint systems and should not be added together, but both illustrate the scale of the problem.
“Urgency is also another pattern you see with fraud,” Ingram told Rotary members.
That may be one of the simplest warning signs consumers can remember. Scammers frequently want a decision now. A bank account supposedly has been compromised, a relative is supposedly in jail, a computer supposedly has a virus, a prize supposedly will disappear, or an unpaid bill supposedly will result in immediate consequences.
Federal consumer protection officials advise people who receive an unexpected demand for money or personal information to stop and independently verify the story. That means not using the telephone number, website or link supplied by the person making the demand. Instead, look up a bank, government agency, company or family member's contact information independently and make the call yourself.
That advice has become even more important as impersonation technology improves.
Wood discussed grandparent scams, in which someone claims a child or grandchild has been injured, arrested or stranded and urgently needs money. She said scammers can also manipulate caller identification, so a call appears to originate from a familiar business or financial institution.
“Nowadays they're using, you know, AI to voice,” Wood said while discussing the scams.
That threat is real. Federal consumer protection officials warn that scammers can use short audio samples, including clips taken from material posted online, to create a voice that resembles a relative. Their recommendation is straightforward, do not trust the voice alone. Call the relative directly at a number you already know or contact another family member who can confirm where the person is.
Caller identification is not proof either. Scammers can spoof the number and name displayed on a telephone, making a call appear to come from a local number, bank or government agency when the caller may be somewhere else entirely.
Online scams create many of the same problems.
Ingram urged people to examine unfamiliar email addresses, unexpected links and attachments, requests for personal information and messages creating unusual pressure. Phishing messages may impersonate banks, employers, government agencies or people the recipient already knows. Criminals who obtain access to an email account can also use that legitimate account to send convincing messages to the victim's contacts.
Poor spelling and grammar can still be warning signs, but they are becoming less reliable as artificial intelligence gives criminals the ability to produce more polished messages. A professional-looking email should not be assumed to be legitimate simply because it is well written.
Consumers can also make stolen passwords less useful. Federal cybersecurity guidance recommends using long, unique passwords, avoiding reuse of the same password among different accounts and enabling multifactor authentication whenever possible. An authenticator application or security key provides stronger protection than relying only on a password, although any second authentication factor provides additional protection over a password alone.
How someone wants to be paid can provide another warning.
Scammers frequently steer victims toward payment methods that are difficult to reverse, including cryptocurrency, wire transfers, payment applications and gift cards. Federal fraud investigators advise consumers to be especially suspicious when an unexpected caller or message insists money must be sent immediately using one particular method. Reported losses involving bank transfers and cryptocurrency exceeded $4 billion in 2025, according to federal consumer fraud data.
Checks remain a problem too, despite the growth of electronic payments.
Wood told Rotary members she has seen fraudulent checks connected with supposed online jobs, including schemes in which a new employee receives a check to purchase a computer or other equipment. The check may initially appear to deposit successfully, but later is discovered to be counterfeit.
That delay is important. A bank making deposited funds available does not necessarily mean the check has been proven legitimate. In a common fake-check scheme, a victim deposits a fraudulent check, then is instructed to send some of the money somewhere else. When the original check eventually is rejected, the money the victim sent is gone, and the victim may be responsible for the money withdrawn from the account.
Check washing creates another risk. Criminals steal legitimate checks, sometimes from the mail, remove or alter information and change the recipient or amount. Postal inspectors say they recover more than $1 billion in counterfeit checks and money orders annually. Consumers who still mail checks are advised to take outgoing mail inside a post office or place it in a collection box before the final pickup, retrieve incoming mail promptly and avoid leaving mail in a mailbox overnight. Using black indelible or gel ink can also make a written check more difficult to alter.
Counterfeit cash was the first hands-on lesson of the Rotary presentation.
Ingram and Wood passed currency around the room while explaining some of the security features people can check. Official guidance for modern $100 bills follows a simple approach, feel, tilt and check. The paper has a distinctive texture and raised printing, while tilting the bill reveals color changes in the numeral and bell and movement in the blue three-dimensional security ribbon. Holding the bill to light reveals a security thread and Benjamin Franklin watermark.
Wood said anyone uncertain about currency can ask a bank to examine it.
“If you ever question a bill, bring it in, and we can tell you what's really happening,” she said.
Fraud prevention also includes watching accounts before a large loss develops. Ingram encouraged people to regularly review online banking and credit card activity and use transaction notifications when available.
Consumers concerned about identity theft can go further by freezing their credit reports with all three major credit bureaus. A credit freeze is free, does not lower a credit score and prevents new creditors from accessing a frozen report until the consumer temporarily lifts the freeze. That can make it substantially more difficult for someone who has stolen personal information to open a new account in the victim's name.
Older adults remain particularly attractive targets. FBI data show people age 60 and older submitted more than 201,000 internet-crime complaints during 2025 and reported more than $7.7 billion in losses. More than 12,400 reported losses of at least $100,000. Phishing and spoofing generated the most complaints among older victims, while investment schemes accounted for the greatest dollar losses.
Those numbers make conversations among family members important before the emergency call arrives. Families can discuss how they would verify a genuine emergency, agree that no one will be offended if an unusual request is independently checked and make it normal to hang up and call back using a known telephone number.
If fraud does occur, speed matters in a different way. Contact the bank, credit card company or payment provider as quickly as possible and ask whether a transaction can be stopped or reversed. Compromised cards should be locked or replaced, exposed passwords should be changed, and accounts should be secured with multifactor authentication. Identity theft victims can also freeze their credit and begin the federal identity-theft recovery process. Internet crimes can be reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, while other consumer scams can be reported through the Federal Trade Commission.
Ingram also offered one decidedly low-tech defense, “get to know your banker.”
A financial institution familiar with a customer's normal behavior may be better positioned to notice when something seems unusual, he said. More broadly, having someone trusted to call, whether that is a banker, family member, friend or law enforcement officer, gives a potential victim another set of eyes before money leaves an account.
The technology behind fraud continues to change, from counterfeit checks and spoofed telephone numbers to cryptocurrency payments and cloned voices. The defense, however, often begins with something much simpler.
Do not let the person asking for the money set the clock.