A 76-year-old retiree was trying to withdraw his entire $3 million retirement portfolio when TIAA’s fraud system saw something unusual.
According to Fortune, TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett said the retiree had been targeted by a scammer, and the company’s artificial intelligence tool was the first to flag that something was wrong.
A portfolio manager escalated the out-of-pattern withdrawal request to TIAA’s fraud team. The team then spent hours trying to convince the man he was being deceived, Duckett told Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast.
The money did not move. A fraud specialist eventually contacted the retiree’s daughter, and TIAA stopped the withdrawal before the account was drained.
The AI Flag Was Only The First Step
Duckett’s account is not a story about software replacing people. It is a story about software creating enough friction for people to intervene before retirement savings leave the account.
“He was being scammed, but our AI tool flagged it,” Duckett said, according to Fortune. After that, the response moved from technology to people: a portfolio manager escalated the warning, fraud specialists kept talking with the retiree, and someone eventually reached his daughter.
Duckett said the retiree later told TIAA, “You saved my bacon.”
The Retiree Did Not Believe He Was Being Scammed
The hard part was not only detecting the suspicious withdrawal. It was persuading the retiree to stop.
Duckett said victims often resist the idea that they are being deceived. “The first thing is you don’t want to believe you’ve been scammed,” she told Fortune. “You’ve almost been trained to defend the scam.”
Scammers often coach victims to distrust banks, relatives, police, or anyone who questions the transaction, which can make an account holder defend the very payment that is putting their money at risk.
Fortune’s report does not identify the exact scam method used against the 76-year-old. It does not say whether the caller posed as a bank employee, government official, romantic partner, tech-support worker, investment adviser, or another trusted figure.
Older Adults Reported $7.7 Billion In Losses
The TIAA case fits a wider pattern in fraud reporting. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report said IC3 received 1,008,597 complaints in 2025, with reported losses of more than $20.8 billion.
People 60 and older filed 201,266 complaints and reported $7.7 billion in losses, according to the FBI report. That age group had the highest reported losses of any age category, and more than 12,000 complainants over 60 reported losing more than $100,000.
The report also tracked AI-related complaints for 2025. IC3 listed 22,364 AI-related complaints and $893.3 million in losses, with the FBI describing examples that included AI-generated investment scripts, fake profiles, voice cloning, and other tools used to make fraud more convincing.
Trusted Contacts Can Help Stop A Withdrawal
TIAA Institute research says retirement plan providers can use technology to authenticate participants, secure accounts, flag suspicious transactions, and raise awareness. It also says plan participants can add trusted contacts to financial accounts.
That trusted-contact idea lines up with the $3 million case. TIAA’s system flagged the transaction, but the money was stopped only after humans stayed involved and a family member was contacted.
For retirees and families, the practical step is direct: add a trusted contact to financial accounts where possible, use account alerts, and treat any urgent instruction to move retirement savings as a red flag.
A real financial institution may call about suspicious activity, but a scammer can also pretend to be the person protecting the account. The safer move is to end the conversation and call the institution back through a verified number from an official statement, card, app, or website.
Duckett Said AI Still Needs Humans Around It
Duckett framed the case as a workplace example, not just a fraud example.
“AI by itself would not have necessarily protected this person,” she told Fortune.
She said the case showed the intersection of technology, people, and company culture. The AI system flagged the pattern, but people still had to question the transaction, push through the retiree’s resistance, and find someone trusted enough to help stop the loss.
In this case, that combination protected a $3 million retirement portfolio before the scammer could get it.