Scam Voice was apparently me.

[Newtonianmechanics]

My dm is on holiday in Spain.

She has previously nearly been caught out by the text scam where the scammer pretends a loved one has lost their phone and needs money.

Having learned from this. Last night the same thing happened. She called the number. She is adamant it was me on rhe other end. She said I was upset and worrying about the cost to call. She tried to transfer me £985 for an iPhone. However she forgot her login code and was timed out. She said I was raging. Hung up and ahe kept trying.

She phoned my husband this morning to see if I was ok. Clearly it wasn't me.

Has this happened to anyone?

We have a family code word .. it’s not written down anywhere, it’s committed to memory. Any scams will be asked “what’s the password”
I would recommend everyone does this

I've heard lots about these scams being on the rise and Watchdog on BBC did a piece on them a few weeks ago. They only need 3 seconds of your voice to create s conversation with AI. It's rapidly replacing the emergency text scam . I listened to a podcast news show where the journalist's mum couldn't tell the difference between her daughters real voice or the AI one. Have a codeword was the advice.

Not being, not Now being.

Three seconds of a recording of your voice is all that is needed for AI to do this.

And you don’t own anything you post on tik tok etc so congratulations to them.

It's very worrying that she fell for it after already having had a near miss, and even more worrying that she's still convinced it was you.
Did they have your actual name, or did the "it's me" trick work?

I think you need much more than a safe word. They might be able to trick a word out of her or convince her that you'd forgotten it. I think you should sit down with her when she's home and have a serious talk. For one thing you should make her aware that if you did lose your phone, there's absolutely no way you'd call her (from someone else's phone?) and ask for money. If they do the "it's me" trick you could also teach her to ask "is that Marilyn or Norma?" when your name is neither of those, and ask questions like "are you at home in Liverpool" when you live somewhere else, and to understand that you would never give account details over the phone.

I'd report the call to Action Fraud. They have web pages where they explain these scams, and it might have more impact than you telling her.

We've told ds (1st year at uni) that if we ever get anything like this we will ask him to confirm our childhood nickname for him.
No-one would ever know that outside of immediate family

Everyone should watch this clip, it’s just a commercial but really good.

It's likely your mother is misremembering rather than someone using AI to copy your voice. That's just not plausible.

I would recommend you keep a closer eye on your her. Likely this is the start of dementia.

Of course it’s plausable, what are you on about?

As others have mentioned, this was on radio 4 the other week, the programme was able to “scam” the reporters own mother by copying his voice.

It is plausible in that the technology is out there. It is not known whether the "hi mum, lost my phone" scammers are actually using it.

From a purely practical point of view, if they are getting a high enough hit rate of success with their texts, why would they be spending money on software and spending time deep faking thousands of voices which might not be successful anyway?

By all means be aware and cautious with phone calls, but this doesn't mean that the scammers have ditched the old scams and moved onto something new.

It's extremely time consuming and expensive for an average scammer to access that type of technology to scam a measly £900.

It's not plausible it would be used for such a small scan. Just because a radio programme pumped money into it doesn't mean it happened in this case. It's not plausible unless OPs mother is famous or known as being wealthy.

Just to be clear OP are there any videos at all online of you and your voice?

@tomatoontoast its coming to all good scammers near you! www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/fraudsters-need-just-3-seconds-on-a-cold-call-to-clone-your-voice-and-scam-your-family/ar-AA1i0tDa#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20fastest-growing%20techniques%20employed%20by%20fraudsters,lure%20unsuspecting%20victims%20into%20handing%20over%20their%20money.

Do you answer scam calls, they can get your voice there, I set my phone to send unknown callers to voicemail but some people do answer the scammers phone calls

Same, and we use it for everything
If I rang my dad and said it, he would drop everything to come and get me
Started as a teenager when if I needed a get out or felt unsafe, I could text or say it no questions asked

You need to tell your Mum that you will never, ever contact her via phone asking her for money and that if anyone ever does, it is not you.

The password idea is good too.

I would be worried about how susceptible/gullible she is to these scams. Maybe she could contact her bank and see if there is come kind of block they can put on her making transfers over a certain amount.

I'll not hold my breath.

How old is DM? Could it be an age related thing?
Or (and I’m not trying to be funny here) but if she’s on holiday had she had too much to drink and either got confused or dreamed the whole thing? Surely common sense would tell her that you wouldn’t bother her on holiday when you have a husband who was presumably with you? And she waited till this morning to check on you?
None of this makes sense.

Also this is someone discussing an AI scam where they used AI to sound like his son

twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/1725901659270742084?t=-CkEuPn6O44ireOfjGfjcg&s=19

Well, I’m an adult and I can imagine asking my parents for cash in an emergency.
I would never demand £985 for a new iPhone though.
I think agreeing on a code word (or several) is a sensible idea.

This is worrying! Faking someone's voice isn't something I had considered AI could do/would be used for.

It actually is plausible. People need to educate themselves, not dismiss this as something someone imagined fgs. Scammers are two steps in front of us. Don’t let ignorance make you fall even further behind! Get educated.

Here's the link to the Radio 4 programme that covered the issue: File on Four: Artificial Intelligence: The Criminal Threat

People saying it's not plausible need to get up to speed. I'm tech savvy, and was quite surprised by it.