Methodology & Corrections

What Family Scam Pulse is

Family Scam Pulse is a structured database of AI voice cloning and impersonation scam incidents. It exists so families, journalists, and researchers can see how these attacks actually happen — who was targeted, how, where, and what it cost — in one citable place. Each record links to our full written analysis and to the original news reporting.

Inclusion rules

• The incident must be reported by an identifiable news outlet or official body (e.g. a state agency warning). We do not include rumors, social media claims, or unverified tips.
• The incident must involve AI-enabled impersonation — voice cloning, deepfake video, AI text impersonation, or phone spoofing used alongside them.
• Each record must carry, at minimum, a verified attack type, an outcome, and a working link to the original source.
• Each record has its own written case analysis. We never publish records that are only a table row with swapped variables.

Verification

Every candidate incident is reviewed before publication. We confirm the source outlet, cross-check the key facts (date, location, amount, attack method) against the original reporting, and reject incidents whose details cannot be traced to the source. Dates and locations reflect what the source reported, not our inference.

How unknown values are handled

Source reporting is often incomplete. When a value is not established by the source, we record it as Unknown or Undisclosed — we never estimate or fill in gaps. In particular:

• Losses: the aggregate loss total only sums incidents where the source disclosed a specific US-dollar amount. A bare "$" figure only counts as USD when the incident's verified location is in the United States or the source marks it US$/USD; otherwise its currency is treated as unconfirmed. Amounts in other or unconfirmed currencies are shown exactly as the source phrased them and are never converted or summed. Vague phrases like "thousands of dollars" are shown but excluded from totals, so published totals understate real losses. Incidents where the source established no monetary loss (e.g. a prevented attack) are recorded as non-financial, not as missing data.
• Dates: shown at the precision the source gave (a month, or just a year).
• Locations: shown at the precision the source gave; "Unknown" when reporting did not establish one.

Privacy rules

We only include personal details that the victim or their family shared publicly with news media, or that appear in the original reporting. We do not publish addresses, phone numbers, or other contact details, and we do not attempt to identify victims that source reporting kept anonymous. If you are a victim or family member named in a record and want details removed, contact us and we will act quickly.

Corrections

If you spot an error — a wrong amount, date, location, attribution, or an incident that should not be included — contact us with the record's headline and the correct information (a link to supporting reporting helps). We review correction requests promptly, fix confirmed errors in both the database and the linked case analysis, and the record's last-updated date reflects the change. Removal requests from affected victims or families are prioritized.

Reuse & citation

The dataset is free to cite and reuse with attribution (CC BY 4.0). A CSV of all records is available at /family-scam-pulse.csv. Please also credit the original news source linked from each record.