Shocking AI scam: Man’s voice cloned, parents asked to pay

A man in US’s Florida claimed that scammers used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to recreate his voice and tried to dupe his parents of $30,000 (over ₹25 lakh). Jay Shooster, who is running for Florida State House, said that cyber criminals told his parents that he was injured in a car accident and needed the money to bail himself out of jail.
“Today, my dad got a phone call no parent ever wants to get. He heard me tell him I was in a serious car accident, injured, and under arrest for a DUI and I needed $30,000 to be bailed out of jail. But it wasn’t me. There was no accident. It was an AI scam,” he wrote in a series of posts on X. (Also read: Fake ‘Brad Pitt’ promises romantic relationship, scams two women of ₹3 crore)
Shooster said that the call came just days after he appeared on local TV for his election campaign. “Fifteen seconds of me talking. More than enough to make a decent AI clone,” he said.
Shooster said that he never thought a scam like this could happen to someone he knew since he has warned people about similar incidents in the past. “I’ve literally given presentations about this exact sort of scam, posted online about it, and I’ve talked to my family about it, but they still almost fell for it. That’s how effective these scams are. Please spread the word to your friends and family,” he advised.
Shooster said it’s time that better AI regulations are brought forwards so such scammers can be stopped. “A very sad side-effect of this voice-cloning tech is that now people in *real* emergencies will have to prove their identities to their loved ones with passwords etc,” he wrote.
He painted a picture of a dystopian future when knowing if the person on the phone is actually your loved one or not would become impossible. “Can you imagine your parent doubting whether they’re actually talking to you when you really need help?,” he said.
X user flooded the post’s comments, saying such scams are becoming alarmingly common and very hard to spot. “Probably not a coincidence. And, it is nonetheless identity theft,” one user said. (Also read: Bengaluru man orders iPhone 15, fake ‘Flipkart’ delivery boy shows up. This happened next)