08 Mar A Father Warns Others About The AI ‘Family Emergency Scam’
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Sausalito, Calif. – Mar. 8, 2024
Philadelphia attorney Gary Schildhorn received a call from someone who he believed was his son Brett, saying that he needed money to post bail following a car crash. Schildhorn later found out he nearly fell victim to scammers using AI to clone his son’s voice, reported Andrea Blanco at The Independent.
The distressed son told his father that he had wrecked his car and needed $9,000 to post bail. Brett said that his nose was broken, that he had hit a pregnant woman’s car and instructed his father to call the public attorney assigned to his case.
Schildhorn did as told, but a short call with the supposed public defender, who ordered him to send the money through a Bitcoin kiosk, made the worried father feel uneasy about the situation. After a follow-up call with his son, Schildhorn realized that he almost fell victim to what the Federal Trade Commission has dubbed the “family emergency scam.”
Last week Schildhorn came on the Cybercrime Magazine Podcast and told us his story.
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