Greg's Corner

Virtual kidnappings become more virtual

By Greg Collier

The virtual kidnapping scam is called virtual because it’s not real. This is when scammers call a victim and pretend to have kidnapped one of the victim’s loved ones. The scammers then demand some kind of ransom payment that can typically be done online. The victim will be kept on the phone by the scammers to try and ensure the victim can’t contact the loved one who has supposedly been kidnapped. Since the scam appeals to the victim’s emotions, many people have fallen victim to this scam while their loved ones are unaware they’re being used in a scam.

More recently, scammers have made the virtual kidnapping scam more believable through AI-generated voice spoofing technology. Just as an aside, when we refer to programs like ChatGPT and Dall-E as AI, it’s actually a misnomer. A better way to describe them is machine learning programs, but the popular nomenclature has stuck, so we refer to them as AI.

Anyway, scammers are now taking voice samples from people online, and using it in the virtual kidnapping scam. For example, a man from Arizona recently received a phone call where scammers said they kidnapped his daughter. The man then heard his daughter’s voice on the phone call saying “Papa, help me!” Her voice wasn’t robotic sounding as some may think. Voice spoofing has gotten so believable because it can mimic someone’s tone of voice as well. The scammers demanded $10,000 from the victim.

Thankfully, the man’s daughter was unharmed. She was at school, unaware of what her father had been going through.

Scammers get the voice samples used in the spoofing mainly from social media. It only takes a few seconds of someone’s voice to make a complete copy of someone’s voice. So, for anything that includes your child’s voice, you may want to limit access to that post.

If you receive one of these phone calls, it’s hard not to believe what you’re hearing. However, as we like to stress, kidnappings for ransom are actually rare in the U.S. With that knowledge in mind, try to contact the supposed kidnap victim either on another phone or some other device. The chances are you’ll find they’re in no danger. In any event, you should contact local law enforcement and let know what happened.