There’s a reason why the apostrophe in April Fools’ Day falls where it does: We all are fools.
Foolishness is a part of the human condition, and we celebrate it today as we have for nearly 500 years — from our friends in Armenia who substitute salt for sugar in the coffee with a shout of “April mek!” to our United Kingdom peers who very properly restrict pranks before midday, to those near Odessa, Ukraine who call it “Humorina” and greet a prank with “First of April — Worldwide lies!”
We love the last — Worldwide lies! — as this fits our days of global scams like a tailored suit, worn by a Nigerian prince.
But while we may laugh at the obviousness of some of the cons — the promises of rich inheritances beyond our wildest dreams or a free toolbox, the return email address as long as a Fruit Roll-up, the vaguely compelling greetings, like “Guess who died?” or “Order filled for $800 laptop” — there’s nothing funny about getting scammed.
Scams make fools of all of us.
A Federal Trade Commission report shows consumer fraud losses spiked to nearly $16 billion in the United States, $442 billion worldwide — in just 2025.
Artificial intelligence, deep fakes, and voice cloning are driving scams to stratospheric levels, with The Global Anti-Scam Alliance saying 78 percent of adults experienced a scam in the last 12 months.
Here’s another jaw-dropping statistic — 59 percent of these scams go unreported.
Why? Because of the shame and stigma associated with being “fooled.”
This, in turn, gives cover to the scammers who keep on scamming.
So we’d like to do our best to shatter the illusion that only fools get fooled.
While older people tend to be the scam poster children, it’s Gen Z and Millennials who experience the worst financial impact of scams as targets of employment scams, fake retail sites, and cryptocurrency fraud.
Let’s face it, scams are getting good — so good, that perhaps we can dispense with the victim-blaming energy that perpetuates an industry peopled with evolving skill sets and massive technology investment.
We don’t blame the poor, anesthetized souls on the operating table when the scalpel slips, do we? Yet we expect anyone who goes online, tries to rent an apartment or buy a house, file taxes, use a gift card or find love or a job to bear the responsibility in keeping themselves safe from the spearphishers, catfishers, spoofers and experts in taking people for a ride.
We spend a lot of time warning people about scams … could we spend a little more on catching the bad actors who benefit from them?
People like Sinjuan Song, 31, of Alhambra, California, who is suspected of conducting a criminal enterprise based on gift card fraud at Meijer locations in White Lake, Waterford, Auburn Hills, Southgate, Allen Park, and Taylor, where the cards were stolen, unique redemption numbers revealed and recorded, then re-concealed to look new, returned to the original store, and monitored. When cards are activated, the money is transferred into another digital account, stolen.
And the gift card, when given as a gift and redeemed, is already depleted.
These are no fools — and neither are the millions of people on the unwitting end of this $442 billion business. Let’s use this “holiday” to shatter the stigma, and re-invest the gobs of energy that goes into prevention into catching jokers who do the crime. Then we’ll see who laughs last.
CNHI News Service