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Picture this: you get a phone call and on the other end of the line is your son or daughter, begging you to send money for bail after being in a car accident that has injured a pregnant woman. There's no doubt it's your child: you'd know that voice anywhere. Welcome to the world of AI voice phone scams.
This was less of an issue during the peak of the pandemic, when everyone was hunkering down and families were often together in the same place. Nothing bad could be happening to your daughter or spouse, because they're in the next room (or right in front of you). But as most everyone's resumed normal traveling, in-person studies at university, study abroad programs, etc., and as AI voice generation tools have advanced, requiring just a few seconds of a person's voice to create virtually undetectable fakes, it's become an issue for many potential victims.
Here's what you can do to avoid these scams:
1. Don't Post Any Audio Clips on Social Media, Especially of Children
It can take as little as three seconds of a person's voice recording to use it to for an AI voice phone scam that is wholly convincing, even to a parent. Be protective of your and your child's audio trail, and don't post videos or audio clips that contain your or their voice to the public domain.
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2. Avoid Chronicling Your Travel or Whereabouts in Real Time
Personally checking in with your family/loved ones while traveling is great, but real-time posts on social media tip scammers off to times when family members may be traveling separately from each other and thus a parent or grandparent could be vulnerable to an AI voice phone scam.
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3. Don't Post Your or Your Child's Phone Number Public Forums
While it may still be possible for spammers to retrieve your phone number from hacking into company databases, ensuring your phone numbers aren't publicly available can help avoid being an easy target.
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4. Don't Answer Calls from Unrecognized Numbers
While unfortunately spammers can spoof numbers to make it appear as a number known to you, don't give them ammunition by picking up the phone and providing your voice, which they can record to use in a future scam.
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5. Determine a Safe Phrase to Use with Your Family and Loved Ones
Pick a phrase that isn't something a stranger would ever guess or be able to find out from your social media posts or a company's database (not the name of your family pet, birthday or wedding date, etc.) If you ever receive a call that seems to be from your child or partner, you can ask him/her for that safe phrase to verify identity. A scammer or AI will likely hang up or make up an excuse.
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Have you been targeted by an AI phone scammer, and if so, what was your experience and your tips to prevent future attempts?
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