Americans are losing more money to scams, and fraudsters are getting better at making their messages look and sound familiar.
In 2025, the Federal Trade Commission received 3 million fraud reports from consumers, who reported $15.9 billion in losses.
That was a sharp increase from the previous year, when consumers submitted 2.6 million fraud reports and reported losses of more than $12 billion.
The most frequently reported fraud category was imposter scams, according to the FTC. Consumers filed more than 1 million reports about that type of fraud, totaling more than $3.5 billion in losses.
To address this frequent issue, Google has developed a solution.
Google says Android can flag fake calls from contacts
Google is now adding a new Android feature aimed at one of the more unsettling versions of that problem: calls that appear to come from people users already know.
The company said Android is introducing fake call detection, a tool designed to warn users when a scammer may be spoofing one of their contacts and using artificial intelligence to impersonate that person’s voice.
The feature comes as caller ID becomes less dependable for consumers trying to decide whether to pick up the phone.
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For years, many people treated unknown numbers as suspicious and familiar names as safer. But scammers are increasingly trying to get around that by making calls appear to come from relatives, friends, employers, or other trusted contacts.
That shift matters because phones are still central to everyday life. The Pew Research Center said 98% of U.S. adults own a cellphone, and 91% own a smartphone.
Google said Android’s fake call detection is meant to protect users from scammers who combine two tactics: spoofing a phone number and using AI-generated audio to sound like someone the user knows.
A spoofed call can make the caller ID show a familiar number even though the call is not actually coming from that person.
Voice-cloning tools can make the deception more convincing by making the caller sound like a family member, authority figure, employer, or other trusted person.
Google described the new feature as a kind of private verification between devices.
The feature is rolling out globally this month in Phone by Google to Android 12 and newer devices, starting with Pixel devices.
Google said it requires Phone by Google, Contacts, and Google Messages to be installed, along with RCS capability in Google Messages. Both the caller and the recipient must use the Phone by Google app.
How does Phone by Google work?
When a person receives a call from a contact who is also using the Phone by Google app, the caller’s device can send a silent confirmation signal to the recipient’s device in real time.
That signal is meant to verify that the call is actually coming from the contact’s device.
If that confirmation signal is missing, the recipient’s device can check with the contact’s real device. If that device says it is not making a call, the recipient will see an on-screen warning to hang up.
Google said the process uses end-to-end encrypted Rich Communication Services technology and works automatically in the background.
The company said fake call detection is on by default, though users can turn it off in the Phone by Google app settings.
That means the protection will not apply to every phone call or to every Android user by default right away. But it shows how phone makers are trying to respond as scams become more personal and harder to identify.
Scammers are reaching consumers across digital channels
The new Android feature is focused on calls, but the broader scam problem is not limited to phones.
The FTC said social media was the costliest fraud contact method in 2025. Nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said the scam started on social media, with reported losses reaching $2.1 billion.
The FTC said social media gives scammers easy access to large numbers of people and allows them to use tools similar to those used by legitimate businesses.
Scammers can buy ads, target users by age or interests, exploit what people post publicly, or hack accounts to make a message appear to come from someone a person trusts.
That is part of the same consumer problem Google is trying to address with fake call detection. Scams increasingly start from places that feel familiar.
A person may see a post from what appears to be a known account, receive a message from a hacked profile, or answer a phone call that appears to come from someone in their contacts.
For most age groups, the FTC said social media scams caused the highest reported losses among contact methods.
But the agency said consumers 80 and older were an exception. For that group, phone calls ranked first, followed by social media.
That makes phone-based protection especially important for older consumers, who may still be heavily targeted through calls.
Google’s update targets a basic consumer habit
For Android users, the feature is meant to change what happens in the few seconds after a familiar name appears on the screen.
The decision to answer a call often happens quickly. A person may ignore an unknown number, but pick up when the caller ID shows a parent, child, spouse, workplace, or close friend.
Scammers are trying to exploit that trust.
Google’s fake call detection does not tell users that every familiar call is safe. Instead, it adds another signal when something appears wrong.
The warning could be especially important in emergency-style scams, where fraudsters try to pressure victims into sending money quickly. Those scams often rely on panic, urgency, and trust.
A call that sounds like a relative in trouble can make a person act before checking whether the story is real.
Google’s feature is also another sign that smartphone security is moving beyond passwords, spam filters, and blocked numbers.
As AI makes impersonation easier, phone platforms are being pushed to verify not just whether a message or call came through, but whether the person behind it is actually who they claim to be.
That matters because smartphones are now one of the main places where consumers manage money, communicate with family, shop, work, and receive alerts from banks or businesses.
And for Android users, the latest update may serve as a much-needed respite from having to continuously screen their phones for scams.
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