Scammers Can Use Your Loved One's Voice to Extort You for Cash

Scammers are increasingly using AI voice cloning technology to perpetrate scams on unsuspecting Americans.

Artificial intelligence technology has evolved to the point that criminals can download someone’s audio from TikTok and other social media sites and upload it to a site that can clone their voices. Then, they make calls to relatives as their loved one, pleading for money.

A senior in Bedford, New Hampshire, named David Hutton lost $15,000 after fraudsters simulated his son’s voice during a telephone call. The scammer claimed to be an attorney representing Hutton’s son, Dough, after a serious physical altercation in Boston.

The scammer put the fake son on the line, who begged for financial assistance to bail him out of jail. “It was absolutely the voice,” Hutton said. “That was the key thing.” 

My phone rang at 2 AM. It was my mother’s exact voice, crying: "I got into a car accident, I need $2,000 for bail right now."

Sent the money via Instant Transfer.

Called her 10 minutes later to check in. She was fast asleep in bed. Scammers used a 5-second audio clip from…

— Olki (@Olking07) August 26, 2026

The perpetrators instructed Hutton to place the cash into an envelope labeled with specific identification numbers, which was then handed to an in-person courier who showed up at the victim’s home. “When you think you're talking to your child and they're in danger, that's what drives your decisions,” he said.

A California woman was conned out of over $5,000 after she answered a call that simulated her 37-year-old daughter’s voice. The voice pretended the daughter had been kidnapped by a drug cartel. Then, the caller came on the line and demanded $20,000 for her daughter’s release and played a recording of the simulated voice crying in the background.

The mother said the voice “sounded just like her” and she wired $5,400 to the extortionists before traveling to a meeting location where her daughter never appeared. She dialed her daughter’s number directly and discovered she was safe at work and had no knowledge of the scam.

“God, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I couldn't believe it. And then I did believe it,” the mother told ABC7 News.

An 82-year-old Dover resident handed over $15,000 to a courier after answering a spoofed call that simulated her daughter’s voice. Similar to the first scam, the caller posed as an attorney and said her daughter had caused a fatal traffic collision while texting and driving.

Someone once told me AI voice scams are so advanced they can mimic any dialect. I believed it, but I didn’t fully get it until I saw this on the news.

A mother got a call and it was her daughter, sobbing and begging for help. Same voice, same name, same panic.
She was convinced…

— Michael Taiwo (@AskMichaelTaiwo) April 9, 2025

Then, the scammer instructed the mother not to alert bank tellers about the purpose of the cash withdrawal because it might damage her daughter’s credit score. “When I picked up the phone, it was my daughter’s voice,” the mother recounted.

Fortunately, the daughter contacted family on a lunch break, revealing that the entire incident was a deception. She avoided being scammed, but many don’t.

Modern generative AI systems only need about three seconds of clean voice data to mimic a person’s pitch, accent, and inflection. In fact, I’ve used one of these services myself (for legal purposes), and it would be almost impossible to discern the real from the fake.

But what makes this easier for scammers is that they create high-stress scenarios like the ones I detailed above to cloud people’s thinking. It’s hard to think straight when you believe your child is in the hands of cartel kidnappers, isn’t it?

By demanding untraceable payments, these criminals can avoid detection by law enforcement and other agencies.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 22,364 complaints and about $893 million in losses tied to schemes that use artificial intelligence. Elderly Americans make up about $352 million of this number. 

As these tools become more widely used, federal regulators warned that these scams could proliferate more quickly as law enforcement agencies struggle to keep up.

But much of this can be prevented by education and due diligence. The more people who know these scams exist, the easier it will be to avoid being scammed.

Editor's Note: Do you enjoy Townhall's conservative reporting exposing the radical left and woke media? Support our work so we can keep bringing you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.