An AI scammer tricked a woman into believing she was dating Jon Bon Jovi

The rise of generative AI, mixed with the ease of access provided by crypto currency , has created scamming opportunities we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago.

Romance scams that exploit these technologies have now become one of the fastest growing and most devastating forms of financial crime.

The capabilities of generative AI mean it’s now possible to get scammed by a range of incredibly convincing fake personalities, including deepfakes of celebrities and public figures.

In fact, according to the makers of the new documentary Super Scam Me , it’s revealed that an estimated one in seven American adults have lost money to this form of deception.

In 2025 alone, romance scammers stole more than $1 billion from American victims.

In Super Scam Me , Emmy-winning investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller builds a digital target persona to intentionally lure a persistent fraudster, then teams up with a white-hat hacker to reverse-engineer the scammer’s digital footprint and track him down and confront him face-to-face.

In the documentary Mariana meets the victims whose lives have been upended by romance scams, including a woman who was duped into believing she was in a year-long relationship with Jon Bon Jovi.

Yes, that Jon Bon Jovi.

What she thought was a genuine connection with the superstar musician left her facing foreclosure on her home, providing a window into the devastating real-world consequences of these crimes.

I caught up with Mariana van Zeller to ask her about the new documentary, Super Scam Me .

TechRadar: From talking to people who were scammed, do you think they were especially gullible, or could this really happen to anyone? Mariana van Zeller: I truly believe this could really happen to everyone.

I mean, the main reason why I decided to do this documentary was because very often I come back from reporting on these scams and people's response would be, "How stupid could they be?" and "Why did they react like this?" and "Why do you give money to a stranger?" And I really wanted to turn the table around and start focusing on the actions of the actual scammers.

TR: How sophisticated are these scammers? MvZ: You know, these scammers are very, very good at what they do.

They spend a lot of time sort of honing their craft, and they use the latest technology out there.