It's a crime that's convincing, traumatizing and on the rise. Artificial intelligence voice scams.
According to the McAfee Corporation, an identity theft protection company, one in 10 people has been targeted personally by an AI voice scam and that number will continue to grow.
It's happening in Southeast Michigan, and we talked to one mom who received a terrifying call she thought was her daughter crying for help.
Amber Berryman was walking the hallways of her work when her phone rang. The area code matched where her daughter went to school, so she answered it. She said what happened was the scariest phone call of her life.
"It was my daughter's voice and she sounded terrified, broken," Berryman said.
According to Berryman, she heard her daughter crying for help on the other end of the phone, saying, "mom, I need help, I need you."
"The voice, I mean it was my daughter’s voice," Berryman said.
She rushed to her car, gripped with fear. Through a haze of panic, Berryman continued to ask her daughter where she was, but she said the 13-year-old would never answer.
"I was almost to my truck and something hit me. I realized, if this were my child, she would want me to know where she was," Berryman said. "So I confronted them. I said 'no, that is not true, who is this?' and they hung up."
Berryman still doesn't know who it was. In her frenzied state, she said she called the number back and got its voicemail. The invasive scam continued that night when she went to her local police department and found all of her recent calls were gone and erased.
She was able to get the phone number from her cell phone provider who had a record of it. Through talks with police, she said she learned scams like this are more and more common.
The McAfee Corporation said 1/4 of adults globally have experienced some sort of AI voice scam, and 36% said they'd never heard of the scam, indicating they're at extreme risk of falling victim.
It's advised that families come up with safe words in the event they ever question who's really on the other end of the phone. You can also memorize important numbers.
Researchers have found you can clone a voice with as little as three seconds of audio. 77% of AI voice scam victims lose money.
"I wish this hadn’t happened, but for me, it has made our family more prepared for any type of emergency," Berryman said.
Another tip if you're ever wary of someone on the phone, hang up and call them back at a number you know is legitimate.
