An AI-powered scam is ripping through American households, using cloned voices and urgent pleas for help to extract thousands of dollars from unsuspecting families.
In Alabama, an elderly couple was targeted by criminals who mimicked their great-grandson’s voice and staged a fake emergency arrest call, reports local outlet WBRC.
The call began with panic, injury and limited time, a classic pressure setup designed to override logic and trigger fast action from loved ones. Alice Boren says she picked up a call from someone pretending to be their great-grandson.
“He said, ‘Mawmaw, I’m in a lot of pain. I have a broken nose and I’m bleeding, but I only have a few minutes to talk.’”
Alice says the scammer posing as her great-grandson claimed that he got into a car accident and was on the verge of being taken into custody.
“So I grabbed a pencil and started writing. He gave me the case number and said they’d given me an attorney and he told me the attorney’s name and everything. He said I am really in pain Mawmaw. All I want to do is just go home and get out of here. Please tell PawPaw that if he can pay it, that I’ll pay every dime of it back to him and I promise I will. Then all of a sudden it clicked off.”
Alice and her husband Frank say they received a call from another person posing as an attorney who demanded $11,000 to pay for their great-grandson’s bail.
When Frank responded that he did not have the money, the scammer replied, “Well, how much do you have?”
The elderly couple eventually found out that their great-grandson was safe and sound and told them scammers were likely using AI to clone his voice.
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