Video Calls Are No Longer Proof

This advice used to work

For a decade the standard guidance was simple: insist on a video call, and a scammer will refuse. It was excellent advice. It is now actively dangerous, because people still trust it after it stopped being true.

What changed

In December 2024 the FBI published a public service announcement documenting that criminal operations generate "videos for real time video chats" specifically to "prove the online contact is a real person".

A video call is no longer evidence of anything. Worse, having had one, people lower their guard on everything that follows - so passing this test can leave someone more exposed than never taking it.

The same announcement noted that operators use generative AI for "language translations to limit grammatical or spelling errors". The other classic tell, broken English, is gone too. Fluent writing is not evidence of legitimacy either.

What still works

Structural facts are much harder to fake than appearance.

Can they be reached through a channel that existed before they met you - a workplace number, a professional listing, an account with years of history and real interaction? Does the person exist in the world independently of the conversation with you, or only inside it?

Does their claimed situation hold together under ordinary questions? Not interrogation, just normal curiosity about work, neighbourhood, weekend.

What to do

Stop treating a successful video call as a pass. Treat it as neutral - the same as any other message.

Verify through independence instead: a channel you found yourself rather than one they gave you. That is the check that has not been automated away.