She Heard Her Daughter Crying on the Phone. It Was an AI Clone, and It Cost Her $5,400

The voice on the phone sounded exactly like Deborah Del Mastro’s adult daughter. She was crying, terrified and begging for help. Then a man came on the line and said he had kidnapped her.

The caller kept Deborah Del Mastro on the phone for five and a half hours. He threatened her family and told her to send money by wire transfer. The California resident’s ordeal, first reported by Fox News, ended only when she reached her real daughter, who was safe at work. By then, Deborah Del Mastro had lost $5,400.

Her story leads a recent Money report on how AI voice cloning is boosting one of the oldest cons around.

An Old Family Emergency Scam Gets a New Weapon

The playbook itself is old. In 2018, a caller to The Clark Howard Podcast described criminals calling her mother and pretending to be her grandson, who supposedly needed emergency money. Back then, a scammer needed a bad connection and a scared listener to fill in the gaps. Today the cloned voice does that job for them.

Similar calls are turning up across the country. An Orlando woman heard what sounded exactly like a friend calling from jail. Then a supposed public defender called demanding bail money, and she handed thousands of dollars to couriers sent to her home, ClickOrlando reported.

Better Business Bureau leaders have noticed. According to Money, Julie Wheeler, president and CEO of the BBB serving western Virginia, told local station WFXR that the organization is seeing a growing number of AI deepfakes impersonating friends and family. John Morris, president and CEO of the BBB of Greater Dayton in Ohio, gave a local station a similar warning.

How Scammers Copy a Voice

Scammers feed recordings of a person into a voice generator, and social media gives them plenty to work with. “A lot of people openly post videos [on social media], and obviously their voices are in those as well,” Ron Kerbs, founder and CEO of AI fraud detection company Kidas, told Money.

AI also handles the research: where a target works, who they’re close to and where they recently traveled. Those details are what make a fake call believable. “It used to take hours for a human to do that. Now an AI agent can do it [for you],” Kerbs said.

Why a Familiar Voice Proves Nothing Anymore

Kerbs boiled down the whole problem in one line: “Now the fact that you’re hearing someone over the phone doesn’t mean anything.”

Here’s the tradeoff. Checking costs you one phone call and about a minute. Skipping the check puts at risk whatever you can send before you hang up. The numbers are lopsided, and the lopsidedness gets worse once the money leaves your account.

Getting it back is the hard part. In the CFPB’s latest complaint report, consumers described scam losses where companies often denied liability and some claimed they were unable to reverse fraudulent transfers. Clark Howard has said much the same about bank payment fraud: “In theory Regulation E protects you, but day to day in the real world it’s not playing that way.”

Three Ways to Handle the Call, Ranked

Hang Up and Call Them Directly

If a caller says a loved one has been arrested, injured or kidnapped, hang up and call that person yourself. If they don’t pick up, call another relative or someone who can confirm where they are. This option works for everyone, costs nothing and ends most of these scams within minutes.

Ask for the Family Code Word

Choose a secret word or phrase that nobody could find on social media. It’s useful when the caller claims your loved one can’t get to a phone. The catch is that you have to set it up ahead of time, and everyone has to remember it while panicking.

Try to Outsmart the Caller

This is the worst option. Clark Howard warns that “there are now professional scam centers staffed by people who are trained in classroom settings how the scam they’re going to implement is going to work.” The longer you stay on the line, the longer they have to steer you.

Set Up These Defenses Before Your Phone Rings

First, pick a family code word this week and tell your children and grandchildren what it is. It takes five minutes and covers the one situation where a phone call can’t verify anything.

Second, pay attention to how the caller wants to be paid. Demands for cryptocurrency, wire transfers or cash are a red flag, especially when coupled with orders not to tell anyone. Gift cards are a giveaway too. As Suze Orman put it, “The government or any legitimate business will never ask you to buy gift cards.”

The costly mistake is staying on the line. Del Mastro’s marathon call shows how scammers use time to wear down your judgment. If a caller says they’re from a bank or government agency, hang up and call back on a verified number. Kerbs warns that scammers can even manipulate search results and ads to show fake customer service numbers.

For a wider look at the AI cons aimed at older Americans, see our rundown of the AI scams most likely to fool retirees.

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