The man, identified only as Jerry by the network, told ABC 13 he was scammed out of US$17,000 (RM79,381) on Oct 21 after receiving a call from an unknown caller who identified himself as a sergeant from the San Antonio Police Department. — Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash
An 82-year-old man from Sugar Land lost thousands of dollars after last month falling prey to a scam that uses artificial intelligence, according to a report from Chronicle news partner ABC 13.
The man, identified only as Jerry by the network, told ABC 13 he was scammed out of US$17,000 (RM79,381) on Oct 21 after receiving a call from an unknown caller who identified himself as a sergeant from the San Antonio Police Department.
The stranger told Jerry his son-in-law was arrested for causing a serious accident, and another voice, which Jerry believed to be his son-in-law, asked the 82-year-old to help him pay to get out of jail, according to ABC 13.
Jerry then was convinced to hire a courier driver to pick up the thousands of dollars in cash he had pulled from his bank account. The man had written down the license plate number of the vehicle that picked up his money from the assisted living facility he lives in with his wife in Sugar Land, the network reported, but the Sugar Land Police Department didn't get far with the lead.
"We really depended on that money," Jerry told ABC 13. "I'm going to have to get a job somewhere. H-E-B or something like that, to try to restore some of this money."
Imposter scams led to losses of US$2.6bil (RM12.14bil) in 2022, according to the US Federal Trade Commission. The use of artificial intelligence in such phone scams, particularly to clone voices, has proliferated since the technology became more accessible in the past year, according to AI experts.
"One of the things that's most important to recognise with the advances in AI this year is it's largely about bringing these technologies into reach of many more people, including really enabling the scale within the cyberactor community," Steve Grobman, the chief technology officer for the cyber security company McAfee, told Business Insider in June. "Cybercriminals are able to use generative AI for fake voices and deepfakes in ways that used to require a lot more sophistication."
The company said in a report earlier this year that scammers can use just a few seconds of audio from social media posts or even personal voice messages to “create a believable clone that can be manipulated to suit their needs”.
In late October, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing technology companies to release testing data and other information and urging government agencies to set guidelines centering on cybersecurity. – The Houston Chronicle/Tribune News Service
