The scams that use artificial intelligence
This page is free and you do not have to come to anything to read it. If you only ever learn one thing from us, make it the rule at the bottom.
Why your ear is no longer proof
Software can now copy a person's voice from a short recording — a voicemail, a video posted online, a few seconds of someone talking. Once it has that, a stranger can make the voice say anything at all, in real time, on a phone call.
It does not sound like a robot. It sounds like your grandson. That is the whole problem, and it is not your fault for believing it. Recognising a voice has been reliable for your entire life. It stopped being reliable recently, and nobody sent a notice.
The shapes it comes in
The grandchild in trouble
A call, often late at night or very early. A young voice, upset, sometimes crying so the voice is harder to judge. There has been an accident, or an arrest, or a hospital. They need money now and they beg you not to tell their parents. Then a second voice comes on — a lawyer, an officer, a bail bondsman — and gives you instructions.
The bank or the government calling you
Someone calls saying your account has been compromised, or that you owe money and a warrant has been issued. They may know real details about you. They want you to move money to keep it safe, or to buy gift cards, or to read numbers off a card.
The person you met online who never video-calls
Months of warm, attentive conversation. Photographs that look real, because a computer made them and no real person exists to find. The money question always comes eventually, and it always comes with a reason that makes sense.
What they all have in common
Urgency. Every version of this depends on you acting before you think. A real bank, a real hospital, a real police department and a real grandchild can all wait ten minutes while you check. Nobody legitimate will ever tell you that you cannot hang up and call back.
Also: secrecy. "Don't tell Mom." "Don't discuss this with anyone." That sentence has no honest use. It exists only to keep you from the one person who would have said that doesn't sound right.
Hang up. Then call back on a number you already have — one you look up yourself, from your own address book, an old statement, or the back of your card. Never the number they give you, and never by pressing a button on the call you are already on.
That single habit defeats every scam on this page, including the ones that haven't been invented yet.
Two more things worth doing
Agree on a word. Pick a word with your family that an impostor could not know — not a birthday, not a pet's name, nothing that has ever been posted online. If a frightened voice cannot say the word, it is not them.
Say it out loud to someone. Scams die the moment they are described to a second person. Call your daughter, your neighbour, the front desk. You are not being a bother, and you are not being foolish — these things work on judges and accountants too.
If something has already happened, you are not the first and you did nothing stupid. Report it to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and tell your bank straight away — speed matters more than embarrassment.
We go through all of this in person, with real recordings, in weeks three and four of the classes.