Her grandson’s voice said he was under arrest. This senior was almost scammed with suspected AI voice cloning [Video]

The voice was convincing.

The caller identified himself as police, but then another voice came on the line. 

“He goes, ‘Hi Grandma. Yeah, I got in trouble here. The police say they need some money to release me or they’re going to keep me in jail,'” Kevin Crawford recalls.

His mother, Marilyn, had just been awakened by the call. And the Ontario senior was certain it was her grandson, Ian, on the phone. 

She was told he’d been arrested for stealing a car and that he needed $9,000 sent to police for his release.

Only, it wasn’t Ian. It was a scam phone call so convincing that Kevin and Marilyn wonder if fraudsters used artificial intelligence to clone Ian’s voice.  

And Crawford says that even though the voice sounded slightly different, it convinced her enough to agree to pay up.

“I was anxious to get the money out; I’d do anything for my grandchildren,” …