AI-powered scam calls are getting more convincing—and more common
Kris Sampson was working from home in Missoula, Montana, when her phone lit up with a call that appeared to be from her adult daughter.
Sampson said the caller ID showed his name and photo and the familiar ringtone was heard. But when she answered, she heard her daughter crying.
“That was his voice, I know he was crying out of fear,” Sampson told CNBC Make It. “I thought maybe he had been in a car accident.”
A few minutes later, a man came on the line, Sampson says. At first he spoke calmly, using her name and asking if she was his daughter’s mother.
Then his voice changed. Sampson said he began yelling, threatening and demanding money, warning her not to contact the police or reach out to her daughter.
Sampson said he saw a news story about similar kidnapping scams in which callers impersonate distressed family members and demand money. But her daughter’s voice sounded so real, she says, that she didn’t want to risk being mistaken. She then heard her daughter say “mom” and said it made it hard to believe it was a scam.
“This was the biggest fear I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Sampson says.
This was the biggest fear I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Sampson said he told the caller that he would send money, but when the caller started to become more aggressive, he wanted to talk to his daughter. He says the caller asked for money via PayPal but did not specify an amount.
Sampson says her sister, who was with her at the time, called 911, and the caller periodically hung up and called back. Sampson used these loopholes to try to reach family members and his daughter’s workplace in Helena, Montana, about two hours away.
She says her panic intensified when she couldn’t reach her daughter directly. But about 15 to 20 minutes after the initial call, Sampson’s daughter was at work after briefly stepping away from her desk. After a short time, the calls stopped and did not continue. Sampson says the caller was never identified.
In the weeks that followed, Sampson said the experience shook him. He became more careful around the house, double-checking the locks and paying more attention to his surroundings. He also changed the phone settings.
“I don’t want to hear that ring again,” he says.
Sampson said detectives told him there was little police could do because the calls were difficult to trace. While Missoula police would not discuss Sampson’s case specifically, they say they have received reports of similar scams that involve callers impersonating family members to demand money.
“What has improved in recent years is the level of sophistication,” says Officer Whitney Bennett, Missoula Police Department spokeswoman.
Fake fraud was the most reported type of fraud complaint last year. According to the Federal Trade Commission. In 2025, the number of cases increased by approximately 19% to nearly 1 million, while losses reached over $3.5 billion.
Even picking up the phone poses new risks as scammers adopt tools that can mimic voices and conduct real-time conversations.
Why does answering the phone feel different now?
Ian Bednowitz, general manager of identity and privacy at identity theft protection company LifeLock, says voice-based scams are changing the way people use phones.
For decades, hearing a familiar voice or seeing a known number was often enough to signal trust. That assumption is breaking down as scammers gain access to tools that can mimic voices and spoof caller IDs, Bednowitz says.
“You really shouldn’t answer your phone,” he says, especially if it’s an unknown or unexpected call. This includes calls that appear to be from banks or the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS typically initiates communication by mail and generally does not call to demand immediate payment or threaten arrest. by agency.
Even calls that appear to be from someone you know can be spoofed. In most cases, scammers don’t need much to make a call appear genuine. Even limited knowledge can be sufficient when impersonating someone you know.
Bednowitz says short clips from social media, voicemails or other recordings can be used to create a synthetic version of someone’s voice. This voice is then matched with a fake caller ID and personal details (names, workplaces, family relationships) to create an immediate and specific call.
Michael Bruemmer, Experian’s vice president of global data breach and consumer protection, says voice cloning tools can now work with very short audio samples (sometimes as short as three seconds).
At the same time, the size of these scams has also changed. Bednowitz says fraud is “industrialized” as organized networks run coordinated operations across borders. Many are located in Asia and Africa, he says, and operate like businesses where employees handle calls, scripts and outreach at scale. In some cases, these workers themselves can be victimized, hired under false pretenses, and forced to commit fraud.
More than 75% of cybercrime now stems from scams and similar social engineering tactics. According to Bednowitz’s statement Before the House Financial Services subcommittee in September 2025.
These scams are also increasing rapidly. Losses from social media scams alone have increased eightfold since 2020, reaching nearly $2.1 billion in 2025. According to the Federal Trade Commission.
This number may continue to increase. Inside A study from Rutgers University in 2025Researcher Sanket Badhe has built an artificial intelligence system that can handle fraudulent phone calls end-to-end and operate autonomously. “No humans were involved in the interaction loop,” he says.
He says cost, performance and latency still limit how widely large language model technology can be used in scams. But “as the performance of smaller, faster models continues to improve, this will become an imminent threat.”
How to respond to voice scams?
The first step to avoiding scams is often to not answer the call at all.
“I call it JDA—just don’t answer the phone,” says Experian’s Bruemmer.
If the caller claims to be a family member in distress, you can hang up and try reaching them through another number, place of work, or a trusted contact. Bruemmer also suggests choosing a code word or asking questions only a family member would know; This can help you quickly verify whether a situation is real or not.
Despite these measures, some personal information may still be available. “Reduce your social media presence,” says Bruemmer. Avoid posting “any picture, any public speaking activity where you can have a long voice” because these recordings can be sampled to create fake voice.
Sampson says his family now uses a code word. He says a detective told him the only real defense is awareness, and he shares his story so others don’t fall into the same kind of trap.
“I’m determined to spread the word…so that some poor mother doesn’t have to go through what I went through,” she says.
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