Compensating Victims of Deep Fake Fraud: Global Responses

By: Judith Rinearson, Daniel Knight, Lucas Nicolet-Serra, and Kai Zhang

Our firm has a pro bono client who lost thousands of dollars trusting someone she met online. Over two years, the fraudster convinced her to move her funds to a US “bank” that would help her pay for her daughter’s expensive hospital stays. The sophistication of this ongoing fraud was incredible. When we researched the transactions on the blockchain, however, we discovered that her funds had been moved to an Eastern European digital wallet holding more than a billion dollars.

Her loss is just a drop in the bucket: Chainalysis has reported that US$17 billion was stolen due to deep fake impersonation scams in 2025 alone. And too many times, the victims are older or subject to dementia.

How do we address the significant loss of life savings borne by these victims? While there are some technology defenses, educational initiatives, and increased efforts to go after the offending transnational criminal organizations, a few jurisdictions have taken it a step further and developed mechanisms to reimburse victims.

Currently, there is not much hope for US victims. Yes, there are consumer protections for “unauthorized” transactions, but these protections generally do not apply when the consumers have apparently “authorized” payments–even if they did so without knowing that it was a scam.

In most other countries, the answer is the same. But there are a few notable exceptions. For example:

• In the United Kingdom, starting in October 2024, eligible victims of “authorized” push payment fraud can claim up to £85,000 from their bank or payment service provider. By requiring financial institutions to reimburse scam victims, this model shifts the economic cost of scams (at least in part) from customers onto the institutions.
• Like the United Kingdom, New Zealand has also introduced a framework under its banking code that compensates eligible victims, but only if the financial institution has failed to meet its anti-scam commitments.
• Singapore has instituted a shared responsibility framework that provides for the sharing of deep fake fraud and similar losses between financial institutions, telecommunication companies and consumers. It seeks both to encourage responsible consumer behavior and to incentivize financial institutions and telcos to establish effective anti-scam processes.
• In Australia, the government has come up with the Scams Prevention Framework (SPF) which will apply to banks, telecommunications providers, and digital platform service providers. The SPF imposes mandatory obligations on these entities in order to prevent, detect, and report scams. Although the SPF was passed in 2024, it is not yet fully in effect. The specific obligations are expected to be fully implemented in the second half of 2026.

These innovative approaches to helping victims who have suffered significant losses due to deep fake fraud are worth considering. No one group should bear the burden of these losses–-not banks, nor tech companies, nor telecoms, and certainly not consumers. But a creative approach that will assist victims and incentivize industry to prevent scam losses would benefit all.