AI voice scams: 5 ways to tell if a call from family is real

If someone you love calls asking for money in a hurry, don’t treat their voice or face as proof. Ask for your family code word, then hang up and call them back on the number you already have. AI can now copy a voice from a short clip and put a familiar face on a live video call, so the checks that work best are the ones a scammer can’t fake: a word only your family knows and a number only your loved one answers.

Five checks at a glance

1. Ask for your family code word.
2. Hang up and call back on the number you already have.
3. Screenshot or record anything set to disappear.
4. On a video call, ask them to wave a hand in front of their face and turn their head to the side.
5. Watch their lips on “b,” “p,” and “m” sounds.

What an AI voice scam sounds like

That script is old. The FTC was warning about the family emergency version long before AI. What’s changed is the voice. A scammer needs only a short audio clip of your family member’s voice, which can come from a video they posted online.

What AI can fake now

More than people expect. The FBI has warned that criminals:

• generate short audio clips of a loved one’s voice to impersonate a close relative in a crisis
• create fake video for real-time video chats
• alter photos from social media into fake proof-of-life images for “virtual kidnapping” texts, sometimes using timed messages that disappear before you can look closely

In 2025, people 60 and over filed 3,143 complaints with the FBI that mentioned AI, with reported losses of more than $352 million. These are professional operations, and they fool careful people of every age.

The good news is that a cloned voice only knows what’s been posted online. It doesn’t know the private details of your relationship or a safe word you never wrote down, and it can’t answer a phone it doesn’t own.

Set a family code word

The FBI recommends a secret word or phrase your family can use to verify each other. When a call sounds like trouble, ask for it first:

A good one is two everyday words that don’t belong together, like “pickle lighthouse” or “blue canoe.” (Pick your own. Those two are on the internet now.) A few rules make it work:

• Keep it unfindable. Skip pets’ names, street names, school mascots, and anything else that shows up on social media.
• Share it in person or on a call, never in a group text or a post.
• Ask for it. Don’t hint at it. A caller who waits for you to fill in the blank hasn’t given you anything.
• Include everyone whose voice could be copied, grandkids too. They’re often the voice a scammer picks.
• Bring it up now and then, so it comes back easily when someone is stressed.

If the caller can’t give the word, or says they’re too upset to remember it, hang up and call back.

Hang up and call back

Say one line, then end the call:

Then call the number saved in your phone. Not the number that called you, and not one the caller gives you. Both the FBI and the FTC say to verify by hanging up and contacting the person directly.

If they pick up and they’re fine, you’re done. If you can’t reach them, the FTC suggests trying a family member or friend who can check on them, like a spouse or a roommate.

Expect pushback. “Don’t hang up or they’ll hurt him.” “There’s no time.” “Don’t tell anyone.” “My phone is dead.” That pressure is the scam. A real emergency survives a two-minute call back.

Save anything set to disappear

If a photo or video arrives on a timer, screenshot it or record your screen. The FBI suggests this for proof-of-life photos, because altered images often get details wrong, like a missing tattoo or scar or body proportions that are slightly off. Those flaws are hard to catch in three seconds and much easier to see next to a real photo. A saved copy also helps when you report it.

On video, ask for a hand wave and a head turn

Many face-swap tools are built for a face looking straight at the camera. Ask the caller to do two quick things, which security company Kaspersky recommends for live video calls:

A real face stays a face. A fake one may blur, flicker, or slip where the hand crosses it, or warp when the head turns into profile. If you see that, you have your answer. Hang up and call back.

Watch their lips on b, p, and m

Say “b,” “p,” and “m” out loud and notice that your lips close all the way for each one. Fake video often misses that. Researchers at Stanford and UC Berkeley built a detector around this mismatch. If the caller says “Mom” or “please” and their lips never quite meet, something is off.

Listen as well as watch. A cloned voice can have the right sound and the wrong habits: odd word choices, a flat tone, a nickname they never use. The FBI says to listen closely to tone and word choice.

One caution on checks 4 and 5. The tools behind these fakes improve every few months, and the Stanford researchers called their own work a cat-and-mouse game. A glitch is a strong sign of a fake, but a clean-looking call proves nothing. If they still want money in a hurry, hang up and call back anyway.

If someone already sent money

Leave the blame out of it. These calls are built to override careful judgment, and they do. What matters now is speed.

1. End contact with the caller. Stop replying, and don’t take their next call.
2. Call whoever moved the money, right away. For a card, use the number on the back of the card. For a bank transfer, call the bank. For a gift card, a payment app, or a crypto purchase, contact that company and ask whether the payment can be stopped or reversed.
3. Report it. File with the FBI at ic3.gov, and include phone numbers, payment details, messages, and any audio, photos, or screenshots you saved. You can also report to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. If the person who paid is 60 or older, the Justice Department’s National Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-372-8311 assigns a case manager to help. Call local police too if anyone was threatened.

Expect follow-up contact. People who have paid once can be targeted again, sometimes by someone offering to “recover” the money for a fee.

Making it a family habit

The easiest way to raise this with your mom, dad, or another loved one is to make it about both of you, because it is. A cloned voice of you could call them, and a cloned voice of them could call you. Something like:

Agreeing to that takes a minute. Doing it with a scared voice in your ear is harder. A line you’ve said out loud a few times, before anything is at stake, is the one that comes back to you in the moment. That’s the idea behind ScamPrep: practice calls and messages that feel like the real thing, with friendly coaching after a slip. You invite, they opt in. Here’s how it works.

If a loved one is in the middle of one right now, see what to do if your parent is being scammed.