The Trump phone was never a serious phone. Not when it was announced last June, in dodgy renders and with an incoherent spec sheet. Nor when Trump Mobile admitted — just two weeks later — that it wouldn’t be made in the US. Not even when the company revealed the final phone, first to me over a video call in February and then to the world in April through a short commercial with the slick sheen of AI.
Technology
How to spot and stop AI phishing scams
Cyber expert shares tips to avoid AI phishing scams
Kurt ‘The CyberGuy’ Knutsson shares practical ways to avoid falling victim to AI-generated phishing scams and discusses a report that North Korean agents are posing as I.T. workers to funnel money into the country’s nuclear program.
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Artificial intelligence can do a lot for us. Need to draft an email? AI has you covered. Looking for a better job? AI can help with that, too. It can even boost our health and fitness. Some tools, like AI-powered exoskeletons, can lighten heavy loads and improve performance.
But it’s not all sunshine and progress. Hackers are also turning to AI, and they’re using it to make phishing scams smarter and harder to spot. These scams are designed to trick people into handing over personal details or money. One woman recently lost $850,000 after a scammer, posing as Brad Pitt with the help of AI, convinced her to send money. Scary, right?
The good news is that you can learn to recognize the warning signs. Before we dive into how to protect yourself, let’s break down what AI phishing scams really are.
HOW AI BROWSERS OPEN THE DOOR TO NEW SCAMS
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A single click on a fake link could expose your personal information. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What are AI phishing scams?
AI phishing scams are when hackers use AI to make their scams more convincing. AI helps them create super-realistic emails, messages, voices and even videos. This makes it harder for people to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Old-school phishing emails were easy to spot because of typos and bad grammar. However, thanks to AI tools like ChatGPT, hackers can now create flawless, professional-sounding emails that are much harder to detect. AI-generated phishing emails aren’t the only threat. Hackers are also using AI to pull off scams like:
- Voice clone scams: They use AI to copy the voice of someone you know, like a friend or family member, to trick you.
- Deepfake video scams: They create super-realistic videos of someone you trust, like a loved one or a celebrity, to manipulate you.
Here’s how you can spot these AI-driven scams before they fool you.
1) Spot common phishing email red flags
Though hackers can use AI tools to write grammatically perfect email copy, AI phishing emails still have some classical red flags. Here are some telltale signs that it is an AI-driven phishing email:
- Suspicious sender’s address that doesn’t match the company’s domain.
- Generic greetings like “Dear Customer” instead of your name.
- Urgent requests pressuring you to act immediately.
- Unsolicited attachments and links requiring you to take action
The biggest red flag is the sender’s email address. There is often a slight change in the spelling of the email address, or it is an entirely different domain name. For example, a hacker might use an email like xyz@PayPall.com or a personal address from Gmail.com, such as the email below, or Outlook.com while pretending to be from PayPal.
Hackers are using AI to create scams that look frighteningly real. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
2) Analyze the language for AI-generated patterns
It used to be easier to spot phishing emails by noticing silly typos. Thanks to AI, hackers can now craft flawless emails. But you can still sense a phishing email if you analyze the language of the email body copy carefully. The most prominent sign of AI-generated email copy is that it looks highly formal with a dash of failed attempts to be personal. You might not notice it at first, but looking at it closely is likely to give a red flag. The language of such emails is often robotic.
3) Watch for AI voice clone scam warning signs
With AI, it is possible to clone voices. So, there is no surprise that there is a steep rise in voice phishing, which is also known as vishing. Recently, a father lost $4 billion in Bitcoin to vishing. Though AI voice cloning has improved, it’s still flawed. You can spot inconsistencies by verifying the speaker’s identity. Ask specific questions that only the real person would know. This can reveal gaps in the scammer’s script. The voice, also, at times may sound robotic due to imperfections in voice cloning technology. So the next time, whenever you receive a call that creates a sense of urgency, ask as many questions as you can to verify the identity of the person. You may also consider verifying the claims through the second channel. If the person on the other side of the phone says something, you can get it confirmed by the official email to be on the safer side.
GOOGLE AI EMAIL SUMMARIES CAN BE HACKED TO HIDE PHISHING ATTACKS
4) Identify visual glitches and oddities in video calls
Deepfake videos are getting pretty convincing, but they’re not flawless yet. They have visual inconsistencies and oddities, which can make the voice or video appear fake. So watch the video carefully and try to catch the signs of unnatural eye movements, lip-sync issues, weird lighting, shadows and voice inconsistencies. You can also use a deepfake video detection tool to spot a fake video.
5) Set up and use a shared secret
A shared secret is something only you and your loved ones know. If someone claiming to be a friend or family member contacts you, ask for the shared secret. If they can’t answer, you’ll know it’s a scam.
Hackers are turning to artificial intelligence to make phishing scams smarter and harder to spot. (miniseries/Getty Images)
How to protect yourself from AI phishing scams
AI phishing scams rely on tricking people into trusting what looks and sounds real. By staying alert and practicing safe habits, you can lower your risk. Here’s how to stay ahead of scammers:
1) Stay cautious with unsolicited messages
Never trust unexpected emails, texts or calls that ask for money, personal details or account access. Scammers use urgency to pressure you into acting fast. Slow down and double-check before clicking or responding. If something feels off, it probably is.
2) Use a data removal service
Protect your devices with a trusted data removal service to reduce the amount of personal info exposed online. Fewer exposed details make it harder for scammers to target you. While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.
Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: CyberGuy.com.
3) Check links before you click and install strong antivirus software
Hackers often hide malicious links behind convincing text. Hover your cursor over a link to see the actual URL before you click. If the address looks odd, misspelled or unrelated to the company, skip it. Clicking blindly can download malware or expose your login details. Also, install strong antivirus software on all of your devices that blocks phishing links and scans for malware. The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at CyberGuy.com.
4) Turn on two-factor authentication
Even if a scammer steals your password, two-factor authentication (2FA) can keep them locked out. Enable 2FA on your email, banking and social media accounts. Choose app-based codes or a hardware key over text messages for stronger protection.
5) Limit what you share online
The more personal details you share, the easier it is for hackers to make AI scams believable. Avoid posting sensitive information like travel plans, birthdays or financial updates on social media. Scammers piece these details together to build convincing attacks.
6) Verify requests through another channel
If you get a message asking for money or urgent action, confirm it in another way. Call the person directly using a number you know, or reach out through official company channels. Don’t rely on the same email, text or call that raised suspicion in the first place.
Kurt’s key takeaways
AI is making scams more convincing and harder to detect, but you can stay ahead by recognizing the warning signs. You should watch out for suspicious email addresses, unnatural language, robotic voices and visual glitches in videos, and always verify information through a second channel. You should also establish a shared secret with loved ones to protect yourself from AI-driven voice and video scams.
Have you experienced any AI-driven phishing scams yet, and what do you think is the best way to spot such a scam? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
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A flyer offering “free athletic shoes from VA” may look official at first glance. It uses VA-style branding, talks about health and wellness and even lists the MyVA phone number. That is what makes it so dangerous.
VA says the message falsely claims Veterans can receive free athletic shoes from VA. The agency says the promotion did not come from VA and has no connection to any official VA program.
The scam appears to be spreading through a flyer and online posts. It tells Veterans they may be eligible for free athletic shoes “at no cost to you.” It also shows popular shoe brands, steps to “redeem” shoes and a process that appears to involve a VA provider.
That may be enough to get someone to click, call, share or forward before they stop to think.
MEDICAL IDENTITY THEFT FOLLOWS YOU INTO THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE
Veterans are being warned not to click links, scan QR codes or share personal information tied to a fake VA shoe offer. (Kira Hofmann/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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Fake VA shoe offer: what VA says
VA says the free athletic shoe promotion is fake. It did not come from an official VA program, including VPRs, Central Office or Whole Health.
That is important because the flyer borrows the look and feel of a trusted government agency. It also uses health language to make the offer sound like a wellness benefit.
But let’s be real here. A free pair of shoes can sound harmless until the next step asks for your personal details.
Why the fake VA shoe flyer looks so believable
This scam works because it mixes familiar names with an official-looking design. The flyer uses VA branding, a health-focused message and well-known athletic shoe brands.
It also presents the offer as a benefit. That can make people feel like they may miss out if they do not act.
Scammers know that veterans and families often deal with a lot of paperwork, benefit updates and health care messages. A fake flyer can slide into that confusion and feel more believable than it should.
How scammers use real VA details to build trust
One sneaky detail stands out. The flyer lists the MyVA number, but that alone does not make the flyer real.
Scammers often mix real information with fake offers. A real phone number, real logo or familiar agency name can make people lower their guard.
That is why you should verify the offer through VA.gov, your official VA account or your local VA facility before responding.
What the fake VA shoe offer could steal
The flyer may look like it is only about shoes. The bigger risk comes next.
A fake offer like this could lead to a phishing page, a bogus form, a QR code trap or someone asking for sensitive details. That could include your Social Security number, VA login information, health information, address, bank details or credit card number.
Scammers may also use the information to target you again. Once they know you responded to a fake VA offer, they may try a follow-up call, text or email.
DR OZ WARNS MEDICARE SCAMMERS ARE STEALING BILLIONS — AND YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COULD BE NEXT
A fake flyer claiming Veterans can get free athletic shoes from VA is spreading online, but the agency says it is not tied to any official program. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs)
What to do if you see the fake VA shoe offer
Do not share it. Do not forward it. Do not fill out a form. Do not scan any code connected to it.
Also, do not provide personal, financial or health information because of this flyer.
Instead, warn veterans, family members and colleagues without spreading the image. A quick heads-up can help someone avoid a costly mistake.
Ways to stay safe from VA scams
A few smart habits can help you spot fake VA messages before they turn into a bigger problem.
1) Verify the offer through VA.gov
Go directly to VA.gov or use your official VA account. Do not rely on a flyer, social media post, text message or forwarded image.
2) Do not scan QR codes or click links
A scam flyer may send you to a fake website that looks official. Type the web address yourself or search for the VA page directly.
3) Never share VA login details
Do not give anyone your VA.gov username, password or sign-in code. VA says it will not ask you to share login credentials in an email.
4) Protect personal and health information
Treat your Social Security number, address, date of birth, medical information and benefits details as sensitive. A free offer should never require that kind of information from a random form.
QR CODE EMAIL SCAM TARGETS EMPLOYEE REVIEWS
VA says veterans should verify suspicious benefit offers through VA.gov, an official VA account or a local VA facility. (Antonio Diaz / Getty Images)
5) Call VA using a trusted number
If you have questions, contact VA through an official phone number, the VA website or your local VA facility. Do not trust contact details from a suspicious flyer alone.
6) Report the fake VA shoe offer
Veterans who suspect fraud can report it through VSAFE.gov or call 1-833-38V-SAFE. Reports help VA and other agencies track scams that target veterans.
7) Use strong antivirus protection
Strong antivirus software can help protect you if you click a bad link, scan a risky QR code or land on a fake website tied to a scam. Good protection can block malicious pages, warn you about suspicious downloads and help stop malware before it does damage. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
8) Consider a data removal service
Scammers often use personal details found online to make fake offers feel more believable. A data removal service can help reduce how much of your information is sitting on people-search sites, including your address, phone number and other details that can be used to target you. Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting CyberGuy.com.
9) Take action fast if you responded
If you already clicked, scanned, called or shared information, change your VA.gov password right away. Use a trusted password manager to create and store a strong, unique password you do not use anywhere else. Turn on multifactor authentication if you have not already done that. Then watch your accounts for suspicious activity.
10) Warn others without forwarding the flyer
Tell family members, friends and veteran groups that the offer is fake, but do not send the flyer along with your warning. Even if your goal is to help, someone else may miss your warning, save the image or share it again. Instead, send a short message that says the free VA shoe offer is a scam and tell them to verify any VA benefit through VA.gov or their local VA facility.
Kurt’s key takeaways
A free pair of shoes can make you drop your guard, especially when the flyer uses VA branding and familiar shoe names. That is the whole trick. Scammers are using trust to push veterans and families toward a bad link, a fake form or a request for personal info. Slow down and verify it through VA.gov or your local VA facility. And if you want to warn someone, send them a message saying the offer is fake instead of forwarding the flyer itself. That keeps the scam from spreading.
Would this fake VA shoe offer have made you pause, or would the official-looking design have fooled you? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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It’s now on sale for $499, past the days of its tenuous, ever-shifting release dates. A few buyers even have the phone, The Verge among them, though more still seem not to.
It’s clear now that the T1 is a real phone, but that doesn’t mean it’s a serious one. Still, for the next thousand words or so, I will try to take it seriously.
$499
The Good
- It actually exists
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- MicroSD card slot
- It basically runs stock Android
A serious phone wouldn’t look like this
The T1 Phone is a curved slab of cheap gold plastic, the smartphone equivalent of a pair of knockoff wraparound Oakleys. The gold finish — more yellow in certain light, though it certainly does shine and shimmer — is tacky in every sense, with a sticky friction that makes it feel distinctly unpleasant to the touch. My phone arrived with a tiny scratch in the top-right corner.
The phone is fairly thin, and light, but its excessively curved waterfall display feels immediately dated. It also loses one of the chief advantages of that design — better in-hand feel — thanks to the oddly angular frame, which juts into my palm as I hold it.
Almost every detail speaks to bad design. There’s the American flag logo, missing a stripe. The fact that “Trump Mobile” appears on the back twice, in two different orientations and two different fonts. Or the camera module, where the three lenses are spaced at irregular intervals.
There are things to like. The 3.5mm headphone jack will have its fans, as will the microSD card slot inside the phone, or the fact that the phone ships with a case, charger, and braided USB cable. These are things that a certain type of Android fan has lamented the absence of for years.
I, for one, am more excited to be reviewing a phone with a notification light again, a true treat that I thought we’d lost forever. It’s a glimpse of a better world, one I didn’t expect from Trump Mobile of all companies. But like the curved screen, even these welcome touches betray that this is a dated, old-fashioned phone, one based on an old HTC design that already felt like a throwback two years ago.
A serious phone would work outside the US
I live in the UK, meaning I may well have the only Trump phone outside of North America. It cannot maintain any signal stronger than 2G, meaning I can use it for texts and calls but not for data. As best as I can tell from digging through the T1’s FCC certification documents, the phone simply doesn’t support the network bands commonly used in Europe.
The T1 Phone isn’t sold in Europe, and that misshapen flag makes its target market clear. But even Americans get to go on vacation every once in a while. From my experience, it seems unlikely that the T1 would work anywhere in Europe and perhaps not anywhere in the world outside North America.
A serious phone would use more than the minimum hardware
At first glance, the T1’s spec sheet might seem impressive enough: a 120Hz OLED screen, a 5,000mAh battery, a triple rear camera with 50-megapixel sensors.
But the truth is you could find similar specs on almost any $200 Android phone and superior ones on phones sold at this price. Hardware like this is cheap and commodified, something that’s only beginning to change thanks to the ongoing memory crisis. Here, amusingly, the T1 is generously specced: 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM come as standard. Those, along with the inclusion of wireless charging, are the only things that really stand out on this spec sheet.
Despite all that RAM, and Qualcomm’s modestly capable Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset, the T1 is often sluggish. It sometimes stutters when switching apps or triggering animations, making even basic apps like Duolingo frustrating to use. This hardware isn’t flagship, but it should certainly be more capable than this. I can only assume Trump Mobile didn’t develop the sort of software and firmware performance optimizations that other manufacturers do, handicapping the phone from the start.
1/16
I suspect the camera’s limitations are for similar reasons. The three rear lenses and single selfie camera take basic, functional photos, at least in good light — with the exception of the 8-megapixel ultrawide, which is uniformly poor.
Other phone manufacturers spend millions optimizing their image pipelines, and none of that work is evident here. Daylight photos are vivid and oversaturated, nighttime shots are noisy, and the telephoto shows no signs of electronic stabilization at all, making it feel shaky and unstable. Incredibly, by default every shot is overlaid with a strangely small T1 watermark — as if anyone should want to take credit for these photos.
1/12
A serious phone would have made more effort in its software
As the Trump phone lurched haltingly toward its launch, the going assumption from many was that it would be a bloated mess, loaded with spyware, crypto apps, and MAGA-themed experiences, putting the president’s leering face front and center.
The truth is rather more mundane. It runs Android — the nearly two-year-old Android 15, to be precise — with almost no modifications at all. This is, in fact, about as close to what the nerds call “stock” Android as you’re ever likely to get these days.
The only preinstalled apps that are out of the ordinary are Truth Social, Trump’s own social media network, and Doctegrity, a telehealth platform that’s included with Trump Mobile’s $47.45 cell service. Beyond that you get a single Trump Mobile wallpaper and those photo watermarks, and that really is that.
In a sense, that’s a good thing — I’m hardly lamenting the lack of bloatware. But there’s also no sign that Trump Mobile has the ability or the intent to optimize its phone’s software or deliver any features beyond the minimum.
More worryingly, Trump Mobile hasn’t announced how long it will support the phone with software updates. When I spoke to executives from the company in February, they seemed confused by my question about how many Android version updates the phone would receive, though they did insist that customers won’t “be locked into what’s there today.” For now, that means a 2024 version of Android with a February 2026 security patch; I wouldn’t hold my breath for either to be updated any time soon.
A serious company would put more effort in
In a strange way, the T1 Phone isn’t all that terrible, but only because it proves how hard it actually is to make a truly terrible phone these days. It’s easy enough to throw together the baseline hardware, stick Android on top, and call it a day. For better or worse, that’s more or less exactly what Trump Mobile has done. Between the simple software and the dated hardware features, the T1 is an oddly compelling phone for some old-school Android fans, but Trump Mobile got there entirely by mistake.
This isn’t a serious phone. It’s a marketing stunt that got out of hand, a way to grab attention and juice the subscriber count for an overpriced cell service with the president’s name on it.
Trump Mobile doesn’t care about this phone. And after the year of reporting on it that’s led to this review, I’m thrilled to finally say: Neither should you.
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