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That frantic call from your loved one might actually be a scam: Here’s why

Scammers are using AI to mimic the voices of people their victims know

Phone call generic (Adobe Express)

As artificial intelligence gets more advanced, scams are getting harder and harder to spot.

Scammers are using AI technology to mimic the voice of someone their target knows and create a phone call or voicemail recording. The “voice cloning” technology has advanced to a point where anyone with the right software can clone a voice from a very small audio clip.

How does the scam work?

Scammers might target you at home by using the voice of a loved one, or at work by calling you and pretending to be your boss. The biggest red flags for a scam are that the scammer makes the situation seem urgent and they are asking for you to send money immediately.

“Received call on 1-26-24 I thought it was my daughter-in-law she said Hi mom calling to say she was pulled over driving and has a broken nose and is now being. She was frantic to have me call the lawyer right away. She asked me 3 times if I wrote the name & number down. I said yes. She said she had to go right now as they are taking her. Her voice sounded just like my daughter-in-law.”

Consumer story shared on Scam Tracker

The Better Business Bureau gave the following examples of possible scam scenarios:

  • At work, you get a voicemail from your boss. They instruct you to wire thousands of dollars to a vendor for a rush project. The request is out of the blue. But it’s the boss’s orders, so you make the transfer. A few hours later, you see your boss and confirm that you sent the payment. But there’s one big problem; your manager has no idea what you are talking about! It turns out that the message was fake.
  • At home, you may receive a phone call or voicemail from a family member in an urgent situation like an accident or a medical emergency. They provide convincing details and ask for money immediately via a digital wallet payment app like Venmo or PayPal. You find out later that the story wasn’t true, and your money is gone.

The BBB said that since it’s election season, voters should also be on the lookout for scammers who are mimicking candidates’ voices.

How to avoid an AI voice cloning scam

The BBB shared these tips on how to avoid an AI voice cloning scam:

  • Resist the urge to act immediately. No matter how convincing a phone call or voicemail may sound, hang up or close the message if something doesn’t feel right. Call the person who claimed to have called you directly with the phone number you have saved for them. Don’t call back the number provided by the caller or caller ID. Ask questions that would be hard for an impostor to answer correctly.
  • Don’t send money if you’re in doubt. If the caller urgently asks you to send money via a digital wallet payment app or a gift card, that may be a red flag for a scam. If you wire money to someone and later realize it’s a fraud, the police must be alerted.
  • Secure your accounts: Whether at work or home, set up multifactor authentication for email logins and other changes in email settings. At work, verify changes in information about customers, employees, or vendors.
  • At work, train your staff: Create a secure culture at your office by training employees in internet security. Make it a policy to confirm all change and payment requests before transferring. Don’t rely on email or voicemail.

How to identify scams, AI

The BBB has the following links to help teach people how to identify scams and AI:


About the Author
Kayla Clarke headshot

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.

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