Featured Image Credit: ABC7/Getty Stock Image
Topics: Technology, Crime, California
Joe Yates
Hearing about your helpless parents or grandparents being targeted by scammers is one of the worst feelings in the world.
They have looked after you your entire life, wiped your bum, taken you to school, spent thousands of dollars on you.
For the majority of us, the only way we can show them our gratitude is by helping them navigate modern technology.
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So, when you hear a heartless, despicable scammer has taken advantage of someone's inept understanding of the internet and the wicked people on it, it's a blow to the stomach.
Those same evil people managed to successfully swindle $25,000 from a senior citizen in California - in a simply disgusting new way.
The man, who has only been identified as Anthony to protect his anonymity, received a call from his 'son' who explained to him that he was involved in a 'horrible accident' in which he ran over a pregnant woman while driving and he needed money to post bail.
Speaking to ABC 7, he said: "It was his voice. It was absolutely his voice.
"There was no doubt about it."
But it wasn't. No, the fraudster had used an AI software to mimic his son's voice.
After just a few minutes the phone call ended and he received a second call moments later from 'his son's lawyer'.
“He said, ‘You need to get $9,200 as fast as you can if you want your son out of jail. Otherwise, he’s in for 45 days,’” Anthony recalled.
Despite his suspicions, he visited a bank and withdrew the cash as he couldn't get through to his son at the time.
Upon his return, his daughter was on hand to help with the situation.
The scammer explained that the 'lawyer' had ordered an Uber to pick the money up from him, and he gave Anthony and his daughter the registration.
When the Uber showed up, it matched, and so they handed the money over.
Despite following their orders, they a second lawyer called Anthony claiming the bail had been raised because the 'pregnant woman had died'.
An additional $15,800 to $25,000 was now 'needed'.
They repeated the process, and when he received no further calls indicating that his 'son' had been released, they began to fear the worst.
He recalled what his daughter told him after researching whether anything similar had happened to someone else online.
“‘Dad, I hope I’m wrong. I think you’ve just been scammed out of $25,000,’” he recounted her saying.
The new outlet spoke to Los Angeles Police Department detective Chelsea Saeger, who explained how the scammers would have captured Anthony's voice.
She said: “They call, and when you answer, and it’s a scammer, there’s silence.
“They want you to say ‘hello’ or ‘is anybody there?’ All they need is three seconds of your voice to input it into AI and to clone it.”