Phone Scams Go High-Tech

By Gordon HopkinsAI (Artificial Intelligence) is being increasingly used in all manner of enterprises. Unfortunately, that includes criminal enterprises.The “grandparent scam,” or some variation on the family emergency call, has been around for many years. In cases such as this, the suspect calls a person and when someone answers, the suspect says “Grandpa” or “Grandma,” hoping the victim responds with the name of their grandchild and then the suspect goes into a woebegone story and ultimately asks for money and secrecy. Sometimes these callers “spoof” the caller ID to make an incoming call appear to be coming from a trusted source. The bogus grandchild offers just enough details about where and how the emergency happened to make it seem plausible. Sometimes, the caller turns the phone over to another scammer who pretends to be a doctor, police officer or lawyer and backs up the story. The “grandchild” will come up with a variety of excuses and explanations and will have the victim send either cash, a wire transfer, cryptocurrency or provide “gift cards” of some type.Last year, FJN reported on a incident in which a rural Gage County resident reported to the Gage County Sheriff’s Office that he received a phone call from a number with an Ashland prefix and the person on the other end of the line stated, “Grandpa?”The recipient of this call recognized this phone call was an attempted scam, partly because his grandchild is only eight-years-old and partly because he was already familiar with this sort of scam. He told the caller that if he was going to tell him he was in trouble, he would just let him sit in jail until court. He then hung up the phone.Telephone scams preying on the elderly have been increasing for several years. According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), “Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the FBI have warned of an uptick in grandparent scams as crooks play on emotional vulnerability and heightened fear about loved ones falling ill.”AARP also noted, “Grandparent scams and related cons are common — from 2015 through the first quarter of 2020, the FTC logged more than 91,000 reports of crooks posing as a relative or friend of the victim. And they can be lucrative: Eight people charged in a July 2021 federal indictment allegedly ran a nationwide scam network that used this ruse to steal some $2 million from more than 70 older Americans over an 11-month period in 2019 and 2020.”The introduction of AI promises to make these scams even more successful. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, fraudsters are now using AI to duplicate the voices of their victims' loved ones.Alvaro Puig, Consumer Education Specialist, explained, “Artificial intelligence is no longer a far-fetched idea out of a sci-fi movie. We're living with it, here and now. A scammer could use AI to clone the voice of your loved one. All he needs is a short audio clip of your family member's voice — which he could get from content posted online — and a voice-cloning program. When the scammer calls you, he’ll sound just like your loved one.”And this version of the scam is gaining traction. According to Aaron Drapkin, a writer for Tech.co, “A survey recently conducted by McAfee found that a quarter of adults have already been targeted by AI voice scams, with the overwhelming majority losing hard-earned money as a result. It also revealed that the majority of adults share their voice on social media platforms and other online spaces at least once a week – which gives threat actors exactly what they need to carry out this sort of scam over and over again.”Drapkin explained how “voice cloning” works, “AI voice generators use machine learning to teach themselves to speak in specific ways by analyzing information from audio files of people speaking. The generators then apply what they’ve learned to read text files supplied by users and generate original audio content.”While the technique of using AI to duplicate a familiar voice is new, much of the scam remains the same. The hallmark of these scams is a request to make payment via non-traditional methods, like gift cards or wire transfer, which makes it very difficult for victims to recover their stolen funds.Puig's advice is, “Don’t trust the voice. Call the person who supposedly contacted you and verify the story. Use a phone number you know is theirs. If you can’t reach your loved one, try to get in touch with them through another family member or their friends.”These scam calls try to inject an element of urgency, with the intention of not giving the victim time to analyze what is happening. Drapkin said, “It can be hard to act calmly when it sounds like one of your relatives or friends is in distress.”If you suspect such a call, the FTC recommends that you attempt to reach out to the loved one or friend on their personal number. If you cannot make contact, then report the call to law enforcement immediately.The Gage County Sheriff’s office warns the public, “If you receive this type of call or any other suspicious contact, do not provide any money, funds, or financial assistance. Do not provide any personal or confidential information. Contact a family member, trusted financial advisor such as a banker or accountant, or call law enforcement for assistance.”If you are the victim of a scam, or if you suspect a scam, you can also report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

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