The Rise of AI Scams and Fake Leads: How to Protect Your Business (Without Losing Your Mind)

If you’re running a business in 2025, chances are your inbox looks a lot like ours lately: flooded with “exciting opportunities” from companies that either don’t exist, are AI-generated nonsense, or are just flat-out scams.

Cute, right?

(Spoiler: It’s not.)

The Rise of AI Scams and Fake Leads

At USATILITY, we believe creativity and common sense should go hand in hand. So we’re pulling back the curtain and giving you the real talk about how to spot fake leads — and keep your business safe.

Warning Signs Your “Lead” Might Be a Scam:

    •    Weird Email Addresses: If the email looks like it was created by smashing a keyboard (ex: info+biz.contact@leadgen-futurepro123.com), run.

    •    No Digital Footprint: If you Google their company and crickets, it’s a red flag. Real businesses leave a trail — websites, reviews, LinkedIn pages, something.

    •    Sketchy Website Forms: If the submission feels vague, overly generic, or oddly formal (“Dear Business Owner, I seek design services”), be suspicious.

    •    Too Good to Be True: If someone’s offering a $50K project without asking a single smart question about your process, trust your gut.

    •    Fast and Pushy: Real clients want good work. Scammers want fast victims.

How We Vet Inquiries at USATILITY (and You Should Too):

    •    Google everything. Their name, their email, their company. Twice.

    •    Check social media. Real businesses have real engagement — not just one awkward Facebook post from last week.

    •    We use scamadvisor.com to check a potential clients' legitimacy. Scam Advisor collects data from other consumers and companies about how old the potential scam website is, if the LLC is under the same name as the site, and collects feedback from others who've encountered this entity.

    •    Ask for a video call. Scammers usually vanish when you suggest a quick Zoom meeting.

    •    Follow the money. Real clients talk about budgets and timelines — not secret wire transfers and mystery invoices.

    •    Trust your instincts. If it feels off, it is off.

A Recent Example of Seemingly Real Scams We've Encountered

As mentioned above, our team members get bombarded with sales emails every day, and recently we got one from "HiveLLM" that seemed legit on it's face.

The email sender who contacted us had a custom email address like any legit business would formatted as "sara@hivellm.com" (this is an example email address and you should NOT try to contact them) with a fully functioning website, custom branding, project listings, and more.

Let's take a look at some examples from the HiveLLM website of how to confirm it's a scam.

1. The HiveLLM website has no menu and is only a single-page website, which shows it was built quickly.

2. When you hover your mouse over the Login button, your browser will preview a link that takes you to a third-party site before clicking on it.

3. The landing page has a very vague opening statement about who they are and what the website is for.

4. They feature an impressive client roster carousel, but it's sketchy they ONLY show some of the world's largest companies and don't include other smaller companies who could personally verify HiveLLM is real.

Sketchy Project Listings

1. Vague project titles that don't include any info on the client.

2. Each project budget is either $85K or $90K. You can also notice small grammatical errors like where the dollar amount is missing the apostrophe i.e. $85000.00 instead of $85,000.00.

3. Each project description is laid out as expandable text, but there is no "Read More" button to expand the description. Again, sketchy.

4. We were contacted by this company on April 26th, 2025, and each project listing was posted six days prior. Legit Project marketplaces usually have listings posted at various times, wether it be hours or weeks prior, not all of them posted on the same day. Notice that each project has a similar due date as well.

Bottom line:

Not every opportunity is worth your time. Protect your energy, protect your brand, and keep building real relationships with real people. (That’s what we do — and it works.)

If you’re looking to work with a creative studio that values creativity and credibility, you’re in the right place. Start your project with USATILITY.

Email: evan@usatility.studio

Call: (971) 543-3383

Project Form: usatility.studio/start-a-project