We knew this sort of thing was going to happen. I'm not sure any of us thought it would happen this quickly:
A mother in Arizona is warning others about a terrifying phone scam involving artificial intelligence that can clone a loved one's voice.
Scottsdale resident Jennifer DeStefano said her daughter was out of town when she got a phone call on which she could hear the 15-year-old girl sobbing. "Mom, I messed up!" the girl said.
After which DeStefano heard this heart-stopping interjection:
DeStefano said she then heard a man's voice say, "Put your head back, lie down."
The man on the other end of the line threatened to drug the young girl, rape her, and then "drop her off in Mexico" if DeStefano went to anyone or told the police. DeStefano said she could hear her daughter sobbing wildly in the background, saying, "Help me, mom. Please help me."
The sicko demanded $1 million from DeStefano, an amount he lowered to $50,000. At the time, the mother was at a dance studio with several other moms. They helped place the necessary phone calls to determine that her daughter was, in fact, perfectly safe, after which she hung up on the psychopaths.
But she readily admits that she was completely fooled:
"It was completely her voice. It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried," she said. "I never doubted for one second it was her. That's the freaky part that really got me to my core."
These attacks are getting more common. If they happen to you, it can be the worst few minutes of your life. But law enforcement says you need to keep your cool when it does occur:
"Just think of the movies. Slow it down. Slow the person down. Ask a bunch of questions,"[FBI Special Agent Dan] Mayo said. "If they have someone of interest to you, you're going to know a lot of details about them that this scam artist isn't going to know. You start asking questions about who it is and different details of their background that are not publicly available, you're going to find out real quick that it's a scam artist."
Here's the interview with this mom if you want to watch it:
