Scammers are leaning on artificial intelligence to cook up highly convincing videos and fake fundraisers that exploit U.S. service members and their families. The clips show everything from apparently grieving troops to staged combat scenes and soldiers holding photos of supposedly “fallen” friends. They are landing in family group chats and community feeds, where they can trigger panicked donations or open the door to identity theft.
Local consumer reporter Tiffany Salameh drew attention to the trend on March 23, detailing clips of soldiers crying in uniform and fundraisers built around those images. As reported by News4JAX, Ellen Gustafson of We the Veterans warned that "the use of imagery of this conflict that is generative AI imagery is a first," and said scammers are also rolling out fake benefits offers and bogus GoFundMe pages.
Gustafson’s group runs the Homefront Sentinel project and has launched a public-awareness campaign to help military families spot deepfakes and impostor profiles. According to We the Veterans & Military Families, the campaign packages PSA videos and field guides that walk readers through common tricks and basic verification steps.
Advocates say the harm goes well beyond a few bad donations. As reported by Task & Purpose, families are experiencing real emotional whiplash as AI-made combat clips and staged grief circulate right alongside legitimate news, and some of those posts have been paired with suspicious fundraising pages.
Government data show how big the target has become: the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book for 2024 logged 99,443 fraud reports from military consumers and about $584 million in total reported losses. Imposter scams were the top fraud category with 44,587 reports and roughly $199.6 million in reported losses. According to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024, those numbers are a big reason advocates say tailored outreach to troops and their families is urgent.
What to watch for
Red flags include urgent pleas for money, unfamiliar fundraising pages, altered or recycled photos of people in uniform, and demands for payment by gift card, wire transfer or cryptocurrency. As Military Times and other advocates note, scammers often dress up their grifts to look like real veterans’ groups or use AI to create video that passes the “authentic at a glance” test, at least long enough to separate people from their cash.
How to report and protect
If you or a loved one spot a suspicious post, do not click links or send money. Instead, verify details through people you know, base legal offices or official unit channels. Report suspected scams to the Federal Trade Commission at Federal Trade Commission and to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, and hang on to screenshots, usernames and donation pages so investigators have something to work with.
Who’s trying to help
Nonprofits and newsrooms are trying to stay ahead of the fakes, flagging doctored content and steering potential victims toward official channels. The Homefront Sentinel PSA is designed to give families a simple checklist for checking authenticity, while local coverage such as News4JAX is helping blast those warnings across the region before the next viral “soldier in trouble” video hits the feed.
