Fraud is active. Our fraud warnings shouldn’t be passive.
Every day, scammers launch sophisticated phishing sites, fake social media accounts, and impersonation campaigns designed to trick customers in minutes. Yet many organisations still lean on passive fraud warning pages buried deep in their websites as their primary defence.
The result is predictable: fraudsters act fast, while customers are left scrolling through outdated advice long after the damage is done. Scammers weaponise:
- Urgency – “Act now or lose access.”
- Authority – Fake branding, spoofed emails, cloned websites.
- Trust manipulation – Lookalike domains, fake call-back numbers, targeted scripts.
Most companies maintain a fraud warning or scam alert section on their website, often tucked away in the footer. They’re meant to protect customers, but the reality is that these pages are passive by design. They rely on customers to know they exist, search them out, and apply the advice – usually after the fraud has already happened.
Why Passive Fraud Warning Pages Fail
Most cyber security experts I talk with agree that fraud warning pages have become a tick box exercise and are failing to prevent their customers from interacting with fraudulent actors.
The shortcomings of fraud warning pages are well documented in related research. A 2023 study (Dvara Research) into fraud-awareness campaigns found that while customers could recall seeing advice, it did little to prevent them from being manipulated under pressure .
Even when companies try to add authority to warnings with trust marks or official logos, research shows they fall flat. A 2024 UCL study found that fewer than one in ten users recognised or trusted official security kitemarks, underscoring the broader point: static content and passive signals rarely shape real-world behaviour.
Fraud warning pages suffer from these same weaknesses. They are usually buried deep in website menus, not in the customer’s natural journey. Their content is often outdated by the time it’s published, and when it does appear, the advice is typically generic and non-contextual – the familiar “stay vigilant” message that offers little practical help in the heat of the moment. Most critically, these pages provide no real-time intervention when it matters most. By the time a customer finds and reads them, the fraud is already done.
Leveraging AI and Shifting to Active Protection
AI tools like scam.report Lets Customers Verify Emails, Sites, and Messages Safely
To genuinely protect customers, businesses need active, intelligent defences – not static notices tucked away in a website footer. This is where Artificial initiatives like scam.report come into play. Rather than relying on customers to find and interpret passive fraud pages, scam.report uses AI to interact with people in real time, guiding them through suspicious situations as they unfold.
The system engages in natural conversation, allowing customers to describe what’s happening and receive immediate, tailored advice. It doesn’t just provide information, it detects fraud patterns on the spot, helping to identify risks before money or data is lost. Unlike traditional call centres, where advice can vary from one agent to the next, AI ensures consistent, accurate messaging every time. And because it’s always on, it can scale effortlessly, supporting thousands of customers simultaneously without delay.
This approach reflects what research has long shown: active, salient, and interruptive interventions actually change behaviour, while passive alerts do not. By moving beyond static warnings, businesses can finally shift from raising awareness to providing real protection.
From Box-Ticking to Real Customer Protection
Fraud warning pages may satisfy a compliance requirement, but they don’t protect customers.
Fraudsters are fast, creative, and persistent. Defences must be the same. It’s time businesses stopped treating fraud prevention as a static notice and started treating it as an active, ongoing interaction.
Tools like scam.report offer a glimpse into the future of fraud prevention, showing how AI can strengthen the fight against cybercrime. But technology alone won’t stop bad actors – it requires a shift in mindset, from relying on static defences to adopting active ones. Fraud warning pages are only one piece of the broader strategy, but they’re a strong place to start.
Until will make this shift, customers will keep losing.
About brandsec
brandsec is a team of highly experienced domain name management and online brand protection experts. We provide domain name management, phishing protection and brand enforcement services, helping brands eliminate threats across the internet. Supporting some of the largest brands in the region, we offer innovative solutions to combat scams across multiple platforms.
