This is the one I'd want my own family to read, so I'm putting it out free and I'd rather you send it to your mother than save it.
Here's what's changed.
Cloning somebody's voice now takes about 30 seconds of audio. Not a lab. Not a specialist. Anybody, off a free website, using a clip pulled from a video you or your kid posted.
So the call your mother gets is not a stranger claiming to be you. It's your voice, upset, saying you're in trouble and need money right now.
She's not going to spot it. It sounds exactly like you, because it is you.
The fix is one word
Pick a word. Something random that would never come up naturally. Not a birthday, not a pet's name, nothing anybody could find or guess.
Tell everybody who'd wire money if you called them upset. Parents, spouse, kids, whoever handles the bank at work.
The rule: any call asking for money or anything urgent, you ask for the word. No word, hang up and call the person back on the number you already have.
That's it. That's the whole defense and it beats every version of this scam, because the person cloning your voice has your voice, not a word you agreed on in your kitchen.
Do it tonight. It's a 3 minute conversation and it will never be less relevant than it is right now.
Two things about picking it:
Don't use it anywhere else. Not a password, not a security answer.
Practice it once, out loud, so nobody freezes and feels stupid asking. The whole thing fails if somebody's too embarrassed to ask their own son for a code word.
The 5 shapes these calls take
Nearly all of them are one of these. Recognizing the shape is most of the battle.
The grandchild. Crying, in trouble, arrested or in an accident, needs money now, and please don't tell mom and dad.
The boss. An urgent transfer, unusual, needs doing quietly before a deadline. Aimed at whoever handles payments.
The bank. Your account is compromised, we need to move your money to a safe account. Banks do not do this. Ever.
The confirmation. A code came to your phone, read it back to me. That code is the thing letting them into your account.
The family emergency. Vaguer, but urgent and emotional, and it always ends with money moving somewhere it can't be moved back from.
Notice what every single one has in common: urgency, emotion, and a payment that can't be reversed. Wire, gift cards, crypto, a payment app to a new person.
That combination is the tell. Real emergencies survive a 10 minute pause. Every one of these has to happen right now, and that's not an accident, it's the mechanism. Panic is what stops people checking.
Rest of it's yours
Drop your email and the whole thing opens up right here. No waiting on a confirmation, no download, nothing to install.
You'll also get the new ones as I make them. Leave whenever, no hard feelings.
Checking something suspicious
If you've got a message, an email, or a screenshot and something feels off:
I think this might be a scam. Here it is:
[paste the message, or describe the call]
Tell me:
1. What specific things look like a scam, and why
2. What would make it legitimate
3. Exactly how I check, without using any phone number, link or
contact detail from the message itself
4. If it IS a scam, what they're actually trying to get
Be blunt. If it's obviously fake, say so.Point 3 is the important one. Scam messages contain scam phone numbers. If you call the number in the text to check whether the text is real, you're calling them.
Always go independently. The number on your actual bank card. The company's real website you typed yourself. The family member's number already in your phone.
Teaching the older people in your life
This is where most of the money is actually lost, and lecturing doesn't work. Explaining the mechanism does.
Explain to a 70 year old, kindly and without making them feel
stupid, how criminals can now fake a family member's voice on
the phone.
Short. Plain words. No tech jargon. End with the 2 things they
should do every single time: ask for the code word, and hang up
and call back on a number they already have.
Don't be condescending.Read it, adjust it so it sounds like you, and send it. Or better, say it out loud to them and agree the word right there.
Cutting down what's out there
Voice cloning needs audio. Everything else needs your details.
Audio: public video of you or your kids talking is the source material. You don't have to delete everything, but a locked-down account for family stuff is a reasonable thing to do.
Details: the ones that make the call convincing, where you work, your street, your relatives' names, are sitting on data broker sites you never signed up for. Getting yourself off those is boring and free, and it's here.
The 3 rules, for a fridge
- Ask for the word. Every time money is involved.
- Hang up and call back. On a number you already had.
- Urgent plus untraceable payment means stop. Wire, gift cards, crypto. Always.
The part I actually want you to do
Not read this and feel informed. Text your family right now, tonight, and pick the word.
It takes 3 minutes and it's the single highest-value 3 minutes in anything I've written on this site.
Then send this to whoever in your family is most likely to get that call.