Children and Teens at Risk: How Scammers Use Games and Social Media to Build Trust

Santander warns that scammers build trust with children through innocent conversations in games and social media, using AI-generated fake profiles, voice clones, and deepfakes. Warning signs include requests for secrecy, artificial urgency, reward promises, behavioral changes, and attempts to move conversations to private apps. Parental dialogue and continuous digital education are essential defenses.

How the Scam Works

Fraud targeting children and teens differs significantly from traditional financial fraud. Rather than starting with money requests or suspicious links, scammers initiate contact through seemingly innocent conversations in games, new friendships on social media, or attractive offers within gaming platforms.

The tactic relies on gradual trust-building. Once rapport is established, scammers collect personal information, influence behavior, and may even use children as a gateway to reach parents and guardians.

The AI Factor: Increased Sophistication

Advances in artificial intelligence have made fraudulent messages, images, audio, and fake profiles far more convincing and personalized. Criminals exploit these technologies to:

Clone voices and mimic speech patterns
Generate deepfakes and synthetic media
Eliminate language errors and create fluent, natural communication
Leverage publicly available social media information to build credibility

These capabilities enable scammers to simulate emergencies, impersonate authority figures, and pose as trusted individuals with remarkable authenticity.

Why Children and Teens Are Vulnerable

Young people are particularly susceptible to these tactics because they:

Are still developing the ability to identify manipulation signals
Lack fully formed risk assessment and pressure-handling skills
Respond strongly to emotional appeals involving urgency, rewards, and fear of exclusion
Cannot easily distinguish legitimate interaction from exploitation attempts

Scammers employ different strategies depending on age. With younger children, tactics are playful and straightforward—featuring characters, games, prizes, and seemingly harmless requests. With teens, tactics exploit social and emotional vulnerabilities through peer pressure, blackmail, fake opportunities, reputation concerns, online relationships, challenges, and extortion.

Specific Tactics on Games and Social Media

In Gaming Environments

Scammers infiltrate games by joining matches, chats, and communities, initiating seemingly innocent conversations. They offer friendship, in-game gifts, and exclusive rewards. As trust develops, they transition to collecting personal information and attempting to move conversations off-platform. They may also exploit bullying situations, orchestrate item trades, and dangle promises of exclusive rewards.

On Social Networks

On social media, scammers create fake accounts, share viral content, and use direct messaging to accelerate trust-building and create a sense of intimacy.

Warning Signs to Watch For

Five Critical Red Flags

Requests for Secrecy (