Living in the COVID World ... and Beyond #66: Warning -- Scam with AI
This might be hard-to-believe … and I’m writing here what happened with my family over the last 10 days.
My mother (almost 98 years old) received a call from someone reporting to be her brother (they talk with each other about once per year) sharing a hard luck story about his children’s college loans, health issues for himself and his wife, and house remodeling that turned into a money pit. After sharing all this, my mom’s brother asked for a loan of $22,000.
OK, this sounds like a scam on my elderly mother. But my mom told me that the voice sounded like her brother, just a bit depressed, and this person was able to relate facts and stories that were identifiers of his identity.
When my mom told me this, I was suspicious. I told her not to provide any money whatsoever. But to call her brother herself and see who answers.
Meanwhile, I wrote my uncle at his business e-mail address. My uncle is a successful lawyer at a major firm. In my email, I told him that I thought my mom was being scammed by someone who is impersonating him.
Within 40 minutes, I got an email back from my uncle. Note: my uncle and I email rarely and when I write him, it is usually a few days before I get a reply. The reply from his business email address was that this is not a scam, that there were health issues, and that he had a major problem. He did not ask anything about me but that was not unusual.
Then I called my uncle on his cellphone … I wanted to hear his voice and interact directly. The person who answered sounded like my uncle and knew information that I would have thought that only my uncle knew. Although it was a very horrible story that he told of what had happened, and it seemed very uncharacteristic of him, I was also somewhat sucked into believing his story. Luckily, I was visiting with my sister and her younger son at the time … and I had that conversation with my uncle on speakerphone so that they could hear. They were more suspicious than I. I told my uncle that I would consult with my sister and mother about his request for a loan.
After the call, my nephew, who has a lot of media skills and uses AI in his work, demonstrated for us how easy it is for AI to replicate someone’s voice.
The next morning as we were having breakfast, I got a phone call from my uncle’s wife. She had never called me before and I had only met her once, over 25 years ago. She proceeded to talk and cry (again, I had her on speakerphone so my family could hear). She repeated much of the story that I had heard from my uncle and added that her brother had stolen $500,000 from them as well as other problems that they were facing. As she talked, I had the phone on mute, and we were trying to figure out what to say or ask that would help to determine whether this was really my aunt or an AI imposter. Finally, we thought of a situation, and I interrupted my aunt to ask about it. Her response multiple times was to ask me what had happened, and the trick part of the question was that I had not attended the event that I was asking about, and my real aunt would have known that. I hung up the phone believing now that I knew it was a scam.
But how do I alert my uncle and aunt that that this is happening when the phone numbers and email addresses that I used were clearly compromised?
We decided that the next step was to call my uncle’s law firm and talk with his secretary. I left a message, and she returned my call later that day.
Meanwhile, I had called my mom and told her that it was definitely a scam and not to provide any money. And my mom told me that her brother had given her an address to which to send the money (further validating our belief that it was a scam).
I talked with my uncle’s secretary when she returned my call later that day. I had never spoken with her before. I explained who I was and what had happened. She was not aware of my uncle having any health issues (he is semi-retired and comes into the office only occasionally) and she was surprised that he would be asking anyone for a loan. I suggested to her that she contact her law firm’s IT and Security departments.
The next day I exchanged messages again with the secretary at the law firm because I wanted to follow up to be sure that this was being handled. When we talked with each other late Friday afternoon, she told me that she had called my uncle and that he had told her that he was aware of this scam effort and that he was handling it and nothing more needed to be done. This did not make sense to me – someone had impersonated him and asked his sister for $22,000 and nothing needed to be done? I continued the conversation with the secretary who I could tell was wanting to follow her boss’ directions. I helped her once again agree that he had told that me that he had health issues and that she was not aware of any, and that my mom had been asked for money and that she did not think that my uncle would need money. And then I added that if this an AI-generated scam, and my uncle’s and aunt’s cellphone numbers are hacked as well as his law firm email address, then might this same scam be run on my uncle’s law firm clients and that would be put the law firm at risk. She understood this and said that she would send an email explaining the situation to her law firm’s IT and Security folks and copy me. She did so on Friday night, and I replied with additional information and then also forwarded the email that I had received from my uncle’s law firm email address in which he wrote that there was no scam – I wanted them to see that his email address had been hacked.
Ok, that’s the incredible story that happened. I still find it hard to believe. There are some details that I have left out just to keep this to a reasonable length … but everything I wrote above is what happened. I appreciate that I was with my sister, my nephew, and our spouses so that we could all think this through together. And I want everyone to know how sophisticated scammers have become. This is a warning for all of us.