Michigan woman loses $26,000 to AI deepfake romance scam
A Michigan woman, Beth Hyland, was defrauded of $26,000 by a scammer using the persona 'Richard.' The scammer utilized AI-generated deepfake video calls on Skype to build trust and impersonate a real person.
Scammers used deepfake video on Skype calls to deceive a victim into believing her online partner was real.
Key facts
- What
- A Michigan woman, Beth Hyland, was defrauded of $26,000 by a scammer using the persona 'Richard.' The scammer utilized AI-generated deepfake video calls on Skype to build trust and impersonate a real person.
- Incident date
- Feb 10, 2025
- Who
- Yahoo Boys
- Failure mode
- Tool Misuse
- AI surface
- Voice Agent
- Severity
- High
What happened
Beth Hyland matched with a man named Richard on Tinder who claimed to be an Indiana businessman. The scammer used deepfake video technology during Skype calls to convince Hyland of his identity before defrauding her of $26,000.
What broke inside the model
- 01 · TriggerThe agent selects the correct tool.
- 02 · Model stepIt fills the call with the wrong arguments.
- 03 · Control gapNo validation checks the arguments first.
- 04 · FailureThe tool runs against the wrong target.
- 05 · ConsequenceThe wrong record, account, or system is hit.
At the tool call, the arguments point at the wrong target.
The incident involved the use of AI deepfake synthesis to create convincing real-time video impersonations. The failure was the ability of the AI to produce high-fidelity visual and audio mimicry that bypassed the victim's verification efforts.
What it cost
Sources
Cite this entry
https://failureindex.ai/failures/michigan-woman-loses-000-deepfake-romanceAI Failure Index. "Michigan woman loses $26,000 to AI deepfake romance scam" (FI-0607). Realm Labs. https://failureindex.ai/failures/michigan-woman-loses-000-deepfake-romance (indexed Jun 22, 2026).Data fields CC-BY 4.0, prose citation permitted. Incident ID FI-0607. Full dataset at /data.
Note from Realm Labs, the Index steward
How Realm would have caught this
- OmniGuard
- AgentRealm
Realm can inspect a tool call against the user's actual intent before it runs, and hold calls whose arguments or target do not match what was asked, so the wrong tool or the wrong arguments never reach the system of record.