ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Debbie Shelton Moore, a mother from Georgia, experienced a horrifying AI phone scam where a fraudster used her 22-year-old daughter's voice to falsely claim she had been kidnapped and demanded a ransom of $50,000 for her safe return. During the six-minute phone call, Debbie believed she was speaking to her daughter Lauren, who lives separately from her.
Imposter scams like these, where fraudsters impersonate individuals to steal money, have become alarmingly common in the US, resulting in Americans losing a staggering $2.6 billion in 2022, according to the FTC. Investment scams emerged as the most financially devastating category for consumers, with reported losses exceeding $3.8 billion, which more than doubled the amount lost in 2021.
Who is Debbie Shelton Moore?
Debbie Shelton Moore is a mother from Atlanta, Georgia. She initially believed her daughter Lauren was in a car crash and urgently asking for help when she received the phone call. Fraudsters can mimic a victim's voice using a short three-second audio snippet, often taken from social media profiles. With this impersonation, they call friends or family members, convincing them that the victim is in distress and urgently needs money.
Debbie's suspicions heightened when she heard three male voices on the line, raising concerns about the authenticity of the call. "The man had said, 'Your daughter's been kidnapped and we want $50,000.' Then they had her crying, like, 'Mom, mom' in the background. It was her voice and that's why I was totally freaking out," she told 11 Alive.
'It just sounded so much like her'
"It just sounded so much like her. It was 100 percent believable," Debbie said. Her anxiety escalated when she checked Lauren's phone location and found that she was stalled on a highway. "Enough to almost give me a heart attack from sheer panic," she said. "I [was] thinking she's in the back because he said, 'We have her in the back of the truck." The scammer demanded ransom for her daughter's safe return, but she was actually safe and hadn't been kidnapped.
Debbie's husband, who works in cybersecurity, overheard the conversation and sensed that something was amiss. He quickly took action and FaceTimed Lauren to confirm her safety, and she assured him that she was in no danger. "It was all just kind of a blur because all I was thinking was, 'How am I going to get my daughter? How in the world are we supposed to get him money?''' she added. "My heart is beating and I'm shaking," she recalled the moment she got the call. "I'm shaking thinking about it right now."
