AI Voice Cloning Scams Cost Americans $352M in 2025, FBI Reports

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Scammers are using as little as three to five seconds of audio lifted from social media videos to clone a person's voice and impersonate them in emergency-themed phone calls targeting elderly relatives. The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report recorded $352 million in losses from adults over 60 linked to such AI voice cloning scams. A McAfee survey found that 77 percent of people who received a cloned voice call lost money, with individual losses ranging from $500 to $15,000. Researchers also found that people performed worse than chance when trying to distinguish AI-generated voices from real human ones in phone scenarios, making the traditional 'robotic voice' warning sign unreliable. Security experts recommend that families establish a private code word, always hang up and redial a known number to verify emergencies, and treat any caller demanding urgency and secrecy as a red flag.

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