The call comes late in the evening. It’s your son, or it sounds exactly like him. He’s been in a car accident, he’s scared, and he needs money transferred now, before the police arrive. Everything about the voice is right: the pitch, the slang, the little catch when he’s upset. Except it isn’t him.
How the scam works
Voice-cloning tools can now copy a person’s voice from a few seconds of audio: a birthday video on social media, a voicemail greeting, a short phone call where the scammer just says “sorry, wrong number” and waits for a reply. The clone is then used live or in recorded messages, usually paired with a story built to rush you: an accident, an arrest, a lost wallet overseas.
The same trick is used on businesses. A finance officer gets a call or video meeting with what looks and sounds like the boss, asking for an urgent payment to a “new supplier”. Urgency and secrecy are the giveaways, not the voice.
The voice can be faked. The relationship can’t. Your defence is something only the real person would know.
The five-minute family conversation
If it happens to you
Call your bank straight away. Speed matters for stopping a transfer. Then report it to Scamwatch, run by the ACCC, which tracks new tactics and warns others. If someone has impersonated you, IDCARE offers free support to Australians and New Zealanders dealing with identity misuse. There is no shame in being targeted. These scams are designed by professionals to fool careful people.