Scammers are using AI to bilk victims out of millions: Here’s how to protect yourself (grandkids voice)

NY Post ^ | 5/23/25 | Brandon Cruz

[Libloather]

This is no way to keep up with grandma.

Cruel scammers are cheating elderly people out of millions of dollars with a new high tech scam that uses AI to find their grandchildren’s voices on TikTok and then use the sounds to make phony phone calls designed to trick the seniors, cops on Long Island warned Friday.

The scam involves criminals finding a vulnerable and elderly person with grandkids — then scouring social media sites like TikTok for videos of the young people speaking.

They then use voice-cloning software and spoofed phone numbers to make panicked calls pretending to be that grandchild, claiming they’ve been arrested or hurt and urgently need bail money or medical funds.

“They’re always trying to stay a step ahead,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina told The Post on Friday.

Catalina confirmed the department has been seeing a growing number of these cases, and said the software criminals are using can perfectly emulate someone else’s voice — often fooling the area’s vulnerable and elderly population.

“It’s often times a grandchild scheme we’re seeing, where the individual will call and say that they are in some kind of trouble that requires money,” Catalina said.

[alexander_busek]

And look at the phone #!

"Hi, you don't know me, but I'm a friend of 'little Johnny' / 'little Mary' and he/she is sitting in jail right now. They confiscated his/her phone, so he/she asked me to call you and ask for bail money!"

Doesn't even require imitating the voice of the victim's alleged grandson/granddaughter!

If I were a scammer, I wouldn't even mention the police - say instead that the grandson/granddaughter was accused of shoplifting (untrue, of course!) and is currently being held by store security. "If you could pay (Venmo?) the $15 for the item he/she allegedly stole, the store manager says they'll forget the whole thing. Problem is, your grandson/granddaughter can't pay himself/herself - for technical reasons."

Regards,

[brookwood]

“(And God help any caller representing a Democrat candidate.)”
Meanwhile, Generation X is being scammed out of trillions of dollars being spent on windmills which promise to improve the weather.

[dynachrome]

“Little johnny is already in jail, so you are a scammer.”

[mad_as_he$$]

👍👍

[cgbg]

“Johnny is a bad kid. If he is in jail that is where he belongs.”

Lol.

[P.O.E.]

1988 song from Was Not Was: Hello Dad. I'm in Jail

Same album as their hit "Walk the Dinosaur"

[SunkenCiv]

A) stop answering the phone if the caller is unfamiliar, B) delete and report spam text messages arriving at your mobile phone, C) agitate for laws to hunt down and, uh, **** robocaller vendors. Until there's a real pricetag, this ******** will continue. It's the only useful domestic purpose to having all this NSA tech.

• Anthropic's AI resorts to blackmail in simulations [05/23/2025]
• AI decodes title and author of charred, still-rolled scroll after nearly 2,000 years [05/06/2025]
• Woman Wins $83.5M in Texas Lottery. Three Months Later, the State Won't Pay Out Her Prize, She Claims [05/23/2025]
• 20 people, mental health business, and a church charged in sober living scheme in Arizona [05/24/2025]

[FatherofFive]

Use an app called ‘knowncalls’.

On iphone phone app, you can turn on "Silence Unknown Callers" This sends callers not in Contacts to voicemail.