Can you trust your gut to not get scammed?

For this week’s Reality Cheque column, we look into how to trust your gut instincts and when they might not be enough of a defence against scammers in 2026.

From a retired pharmacist getting defrauded of her life savings by a Mark Carney deepfake promoting a crypto scheme to a text message touting a fake milk class-action settlement, the line between reality and fiction is about as clear as a Black Mirror episode. And, personally, when I read about these fraud cases, I think it could never happen to me. I think I’ve seen too many fraud cases and I’ll know when the wool is being pulled over my eyes.

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You know who doesn’t agree with me? Jeff Horncastle, client and communications outreach officer with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC). “ One of the biggest misconceptions about fraud is that it only happens to people who aren’t careful,” he says.

According to statistics that Horncastle shared, scammers are getting more proficient—a trend that accelerated when the world went more online during the pandemic and continues now. In 2020, the CAFC received 107,818 reports of fraud totalling nearly $165 million in losses. Those losses more than doubled in 2021 to $388 million—and in 2025, Canadians were scammed out of a collective $704 million. And the CAFC estimates that only five to 10% of all fraud gets reported in Canada.

That’s an alarming amount of money that many people—many smarter than me—have lost. With fraud becoming so sophisticated, can we learn to trust our instincts more before we open our wallets? Should we?

Don’t rationalize your instincts away

When it comes to learning to trust your gut instincts, Dr. Martina Dove, scam researcher and author of The Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion and Scam Techniques, knows all about the inner workings of scam artists and the destruction they leave behind. Her advice on trusting our subconscious is simple, but not easy: Don’t dismiss what you don’t understand.

“A lot of the time, these instincts are very, very subliminal, and you detect it.” A situation causes some anxiety, she says, but your instincts can also feel illogical. “So, you ignore them,” she says.

But stop! Instead of dismissing the feeling as illogical or irrational, Dove recommends seeking out facts to validate—or invalidate—the intuition. We can be tempted to either trust or distrust our intuitions based on our past experiences with them, Dove explains, but the best move is to fact-check the individual or organization that’s provoking suspicion, regardless of how much you trust your gut feeling.

“Be aware that subconscious gut feelings not tied to anything can still be valid, and seek some facts when that feeling happens, even if you don’t suspect anything,” she recommends. (Give your gut a head’s up with these tricks on spotting AI scams.)

Pay attention to your emotions

In her research, Dove found that many victims had no idea they were being groomed by a scammer until it was too late. The explanation: Scammers were tapping into primal emotions (think love, fear, greed) that were below the surface of the victim’s consciousness. They were steering their victims’ ship of decision-making from the rudder, so to speak.

Dove calls these “visceral influences,” which can be used to override our critical thinking. It’s unsettling to hear that scammers can be like psychologists who have turned evil. If a scammer grabs my emotional reins, do I have any power to go in my own direction?

Thankfully, yes, (existential crisis averted).

One defence, Dove explains, is emotional awareness, learning to watch for large emotional swings. Another is feeling that a relationship with a new person is out of sorts. These can be signs of manipulation. Emotional influence on a dramatic scale isn’t the only way scammers work, Dove adds. Some take a meticulous, incremental approach, slowly building up emotional currency with a victim and then cashing it in for the victim’s money. (Here are more ways scammers trick smart people.)

Others use a practice called “ego depletion”—wearing someone down emotionally to break their will. Think of police interrogations in a dark room, she explains. If someone is feeling worn down or wondering if they are going crazy after making a new connection, that could be the signs of emotional grooming at play.

No matter how a scammer approaches emotional grooming, Dove suggests, it’s a good idea to be aware of your overall emotional health throughout the course of any new relationship.

Trust your intuition—and know when not to

While our subconscious radar is important, don’t rely on it alone. Over many years with the CAFC, Horncastle has seen scammers become more proficient in “making your gut feel safe,” often through impersonating loved ones, bank investigators and other people we trust. Dove’s research has revealed how scammers take a page out of psychiatry manuals to manipulate victims based on unmet childhood needs and trauma.

Though our instincts have their place, both experts recommend adopting a few rules and guidelines for how to deal with financially suspicious situations. This sets you up to make decisions on rational, pre-determined criteria, not the emotions that scammers can manipulate and deceive.

Take a beat, and talk to someone. Dove and Horncastle recommend reaching out to a friend or trusted person to verify financial decisions before they’re made in haste.

“ Fraud thrives in isolation,” Horncastle tells me. “Simply talking to a trusted family member or friend before sending money or giving personal information can go a really long way.” Even discussing a financial decision with an AI chatbot could prevent disaster.

Complex fraud doesn’t require complex defences

From the statistics Horncastle shared and the horror stories of fraud, it’s clear that bad actors’ sophistication in scamming is only matched by their greed. The CAFC notes on their website that $351 million was lost to fraud as of June 30, 2026, which puts the country on track to lose about the same as it did in 2025. (Here’s how much scams can cost you.)

The depth of scammers’ abilities to deceive and manipulate can be daunting, but Horncastle tells me there’s an interesting silver lining. “ As much as fraud has evolved, the habits that we should follow as Canadians when we’re looking to protect ourselves from fraud are very similar than they would’ve been 20 years ago.”

To illustrate his point, Horncastle points to someone receiving a call about winning a lottery or gift. Whether that happened two decades ago or two days ago, the CAFC would still advise them to independently verify the caller and their winnings, he says.

At the end of the day, the steps to protect ourselves have not changed all that much, even though scammers’ methods are becoming more advanced.

It’s still true that the line between fiction and reality becomes clearer when we can take a step back and analyze our emotions, and we still need to separate the urgency of a decision from its pros and cons.

Sounds like the advice my therapist gave me last month, actually.