PHOENIX – Today, Attorney General Kris Mayes and Better Business Bureau (BBB) published their third PSA as part of their educational campaign to warn Arizonans about how to spot and avoid common scams. This video focuses on scammers that try to take advantage of consumers with AI voice cloning technology.
With this rapidly evolving technology, scammers can trick consumers into thinking a loved one is in trouble and needs money or gift cards. Some scammers may combine this technology with spoofing equipment and clips from videos on social media using AI to make it sound like celebrities, elected officials, or even your own friends and family are calling.
Scammers may try to fool an unsuspecting grandparent that a grandchild is in trouble and needs immediate financial assistance or solicit donations to a fake charity endorsed by what sounds like a trusted celebrity. Reports have also included parents receiving a phone call using the cloned voice of their child claiming to have been badly injured in a car accident or in need of money to pay bail.
The Attorney General and BBB provide the following tips to protect yourself from voice clone AI scams:
- Don't answer calls from unknown numbers.
- Beware of any emergency call asking for money to be sent right away.
- Don’t trust the voice or message as voices can be imitated with AI.
- If the caller claims to be a family member or friend in distress, hang up and call your loved one through a trusted number to verify the call or text. If you can’t reach your loved one, try to get in touch with them through another family member or their friends.
- Consider establishing a code word or phrase that only your loved one would know to verify their identity.
- Beware of high-pressure scare tactics.
- Beware of requests for payments through gift cards, person-to-person pay apps, etc.
The Consumer Protection and Advocacy Section at the AGO protects people – including Arizona’s most vulnerable residents – from fraudsters and scammers, and from all types of deceptive and harmful business practices by enforcing Arizona’s consumer protection laws and other state and federal law. If you believe you have been a victim of consumer fraud, you can file a consumer complaint by visiting the Attorney General’s website. If you need a complaint form sent to you, you can contact the Attorney General’s Office in Phoenix at (602) 542-5763, in Tucson at (520) 628-6648, or outside the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas at (800) 352-8431.
BBB helps consumers make informed buying decisions and is a go-to resource for trusted consumer information, consumer tips and scam alerts. Consumers can also report scams and fraud attempts through BBB's Scam Tracker, which helps identify scam tactics and trends.
