A 2026 report from the staff of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, “Artificial Intelligence & Older Americans: Confronting New Threats, Unlocking New Opportunities,” describes a surge in sophisticated scams aimed at older Americans, including deepfakes, voice cloning, and more personalized phishing messages. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data cited in the report puts fraud losses among adults 60 and older at $7.7 billion in 2025, up from $4.8 billion in 2024.
The more useful takeaway for federal employees and retirees is practical. Scam tactics keep changing, but the habits that defeat them stay the same, and those habits are easiest to set up before a suspicious message arrives. This guide covers the common scam types, what the committee found, how real government AI tools fit in, and a short checklist to put in place now.
Why Federal Workers at Every Career Stage Are a Target
Scammers go where the money and the deadlines are. Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) balances, pensions, health coverage elections, and online benefit accounts all fit that description. The exposure is not limited to retirees. A mid-career employee has accounts to protect and annual enrollment decisions to make, and employees approaching retirement face large choices such as rollovers, survivor elections, and Social Security claiming.
Fraud data is generally reported by age rather than by profession, so this reasoning is about exposure and timing, not a measured difference in how often federal workers are targeted.
Common Scam Types, Old and New
Most benefit-related scams fall into a few patterns:
- Impersonation calls and texts claiming a problem with an account, benefit, or payment, paired with pressure to act quickly.
- Phishing emails that point to look-alike login pages, often framed as an urgent account alert.
- Unsolicited offers of help with enrollment, rollovers, or benefits decisions.
- Payment demands by gift card, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or cash.
AARP’s guide to government impostor frauds covers the pattern in more detail.
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None of this is new. In 2006, the TSP warned participants about a phishing email that sent recipients to a look-alike account-access site seeking Social Security numbers and personal identification numbers. About 500 people called the TSP the first day, and officials suspended online transactions and alerted the FBI. In 2017, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) warned annuitants about callers posing as OPM employees who threatened to end retirement payments unless a payment was made immediately, sometimes with spoofed caller ID.
What the Senate Aging Committee Report Says
The report, prepared by majority and minority committee staff, points to several ways artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the picture. It is an informational staff report rather than a set of formally adopted committee findings.
- Deepfakes: AI-manipulated or AI-generated video, audio, or images that appear authentic, used in financial and romance scams. The report describes cases including an 82-year-old who lost more than $690,000 after a fake celebrity investment video.
- Voice cloning: short audio samples, often taken from social media, used to imitate a loved one in a fake emergency.
- Phishing: the report says more than 82 percent of phishing emails are now AI-assisted, and it cites fully automated spear-phishing with a 54 percent click-through rate, compared with 12 percent for generic phishing.
- Off-the-shelf scam software sold on the dark web for as little as $20, which lowers the technical skill needed to commit fraud.
The report also cites Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data showing reported losses among adults 60 and older growing from about $600 million in 2020 to $2.4 billion in 2024.
Its protective guidance is simple. Requests for payment by gift card, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or cash are described as a near-universal fraud indicator, and urgency or pressure to act immediately is another red flag. The report also notes that the FBI recommends a family code word or verbal safe phrase to verify a distressed caller, since a familiar voice alone is no longer reliable verification.
Real AI Tools Are Arriving Too
Government agencies are adopting AI as well, and much of it is aimed at making service faster. OPM Chief Information Officer Adam Starr said on October 14 that OPM recently launched an AI agent to help process phone calls for its retirement services team. Government Executive reports the retirement backlog fell to 8,814 pending cases in September, down from 55,681 on March 31, and Starr said the move from paper to digital processing opens the door to further speedups. The White House has also launched America.gov, which includes a chatbot that answers questions on topics such as Medicare eligibility. For more on how AI adoption may touch retirement timing and paperwork, see this look at AI workforce changes.
These are useful developments, and they carry one practical implication. As AI voices and chat tools become routine on legitimate lines, a natural-sounding voice is no longer a reliable sign of who is on the other end. The safer habit is to verify the channel rather than the voice: start the contact yourself through the official website or a number listed there, and treat unsolicited contact as unverified no matter how smooth it sounds.
Agency by Agency: What the Official Warnings Say
| Agency | What its warnings say | Safer move |
|---|---|---|
| TSP | The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), citing the TSP’s administrator, says the TSP will not contact participants about investment opportunities and will not ask for an account number, Social Security number, password, or PIN by email, phone, or mail. | Log in by typing tsp.gov yourself. Read the SEC alert for details. |
| OPM | OPM has said it does not make calls that demand immediate payment, ask for payment by prepaid card or wire transfer, or threaten referral to law enforcement. | Hang up, then contact OPM through opm.gov. Report the attempt to the OPM Office of Inspector General. |
| Social Security Administration (SSA) | Official SSA emails come from addresses ending in .gov. In 2026, SSA warned of a sharp rise in fake emails claiming a Social Security statement is ready to download, and its Office of Inspector General (OIG) warned of scammers using real employee names with fake badges. | Check your account directly at ssa.gov/myaccount. Report scams at oig.ssa.gov/report. |
| Medicare | Plan information is available without giving a Medicare number, Part D enrollment is voluntary, and unexpected callers asking for a Medicare number are a red flag. | Use medicare.gov or call 1-800-MEDICARE. |
Busy Seasons: Open Season and Year-End
Scams are a year-round problem, but certain stretches put more messages in front of people at once. Medicare open enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. The federal benefits Open Season runs from November 9 through December 14, 2026, covering the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program, the Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) Program, and the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP), according to OPM.
With legitimate plan, insurer, and agency messages arriving, it becomes harder to tell which ones are real. Consumer groups report Medicare-season ploys such as claims of a “new Medicare card,” offers of free gifts like genetic tests or glucose monitors, and false statements that Part D enrollment is mandatory. OPM has also warned in the past about private insurance marketing that referenced the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) program, a reminder that implied government affiliation is a common sales tactic.
For plan details, start with official sources such as OPM and the FEHB premium rates page rather than any message that arrives unprompted. For Medicare costs, the Medicare premiums page is a good reference.
Can You Trust a Chatbot With Federal Retirement Questions?
General-purpose AI chatbots can be handy for orientation, such as explaining a term or outlining the steps in a process. They can also give confident answers that are out of date or wrong on the details that matter most, including eligibility ages, health coverage requirements, and survivor election rules for the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).
A reasonable approach is to use a chatbot to get oriented, then confirm any specific figure or rule against OPM, the plan’s own documents, or a human benefits specialist before acting. The same caution applies to unfamiliar websites that present an “AI advisor” for federal benefits. Check who runs the site, and never enter account credentials or Social Security numbers into a chat window.
Habits That Work on Any Technology
- Treat unsolicited contact as unverified, however official it sounds or looks.
- Hang up and call back using a number from the official website, or type the web address yourself instead of clicking a link.
- Never share a Social Security number, account number, password, or PIN in response to unsolicited contact.
- Be wary of pressure to act immediately, requests for secrecy, and payment by gift card, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or cash.
- Use a family code word for emergency calls.
- Slow down at deadlines. A real deadline survives a day spent verifying it.
- Report suspicious contact, even when nothing was lost.
Set It Up Now: A Short Checklist
- Create or secure a My Social Security account. SSA’s inspector general recommends this so that no one else can set one up in your name.
- Use strong, unique passwords and turn on multi-factor authentication where it is offered for TSP, OPM, and Medicare accounts.
- Save the official websites for TSP, OPM, SSA, and Medicare as bookmarks, and use those instead of links in messages.
- Agree on a family code word and tell a trusted relative where the key accounts are.
- Keep a short list of where to report suspicious contact, shown below.
Where to Report
- Social Security-related scams: oig.ssa.gov/report
- OPM impersonation: OPM Office of Inspector General
- Medicare-related scams: 1-800-MEDICARE or medicare.gov
- General fraud: the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center
- TSP account concerns: contact the TSP through tsp.gov
- Talk to someone: the AARP Fraud Watch Network helpline at 877-908-3360, weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, run by the nonprofit AARP
- See what is being reported nearby: AARP’s scam tracking map
If personal or financial information was shared, contact the affected financial institution right away and consider placing a fraud alert or freeze on credit reports.