So I thought it was worth a post.
This is awful.
One question. How in the world would the scammers get enough voice samples from your child to make a convincing deep fake voice recording?
This AI stuff is going to get really bad.
Like this.
Just this morning on another thread, people on this site thought it was real. It wasn’t.
If I got a call like this it would upset me greatly as I don’t have any kids.
I had a brother in law that used to call my sister a lot and tell her not to pay the ransom that he would escape.
My father in law got took for 30000 in one of these. Everybody needs an authentication word. The modern day proof of life so to speak. One example is Afghanistan banana stand. (Extra points to anybody who can name the movie that came from)
” i always liked your brother better”
I have received several calls of the”Grampa! I need help!” All scams and a few questions will show them to be the scammers they are.
People are not smart anymore and will buy into anything..Recently a man in my area got a call from someone claiming to be a bail bondsman saying his grandson was in jail in Dallas TX and needed $5000 get out and he needed to wire the money to him...luck to have it he told his neighbor he was going to local Walgreens to wire the money and this neighbor had the sense to call his daughter in a nearby city what he was doing and she has just spoke with her Son and so she called the Police to intercept them which they were able to and stop the fraud.
I wish there was a way to find these scammers, dispatch hit squads to wipe them out and burn everything they own to the ground. They prey on the old, wreck their lives and those that depend on them. The only way to stop it is to exterminate them like the vermin they are.
I don't answer my phone anymore unless it's from someone already in my Contacts list. Others can leave a voicemail.
It is a good topic.
On Patrol Live had a hilarious incident where a guy was called on a cell phone and told his girl friend had been kidnapped and a ransom was needed.
He was a little suspicious because it turned out he had never actually met the woman in person.
The whole thing was a setup—the “girlfriend” was probably a picture that did not even match the name.
I’m glad this wasn’t around when my sisters were teenagers. They used to go to places Ike Rodeo Drive and take pictures pretending to be opening a Jaguar, Maserati, etc. Imagine the size of that ransom demand.
As others have noted, we do not answer calls we are not sure about. We do not receive many spam calls. One of the few we have received is hilarious. A very official voice begins with “there is nothing wrong with your Social Security account.....however......”
Many, many moons ago, I received one of those emails versions of the Nigerian bank scam. “A large amount of money has been found that was left to you, but we need a little money, bank info, etc.” This was at work. We had pretty good spam filters, but nothing is perfect. Besides the obvious scam, I could tell from the email and website addresses that it was from Europe. I decided to have a little fun. I took some time to compose a response. I said something like this: “Thank you very much. I look forward to working with you. In order to establish the veracity of this communication, please have FedEx overnight $5,000 in gold bullion. Once I have received and authenticated the gold, we can talk further.”
The idiots actually responded with: “I know understand you.” I responded with:
“No kidding Dick Tracy.”