SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO—An elderly woman from South San Francisco was scammed out of $22,000 after a suspect contacted her claiming that her son was responsible for her miscarriage.
The suspect told the victim that she and her son were involved in a collision and she suffered a miscarriage as a result. She said that the son owed her money for the ordeal and the victim complied.
Two men showed up to her door twice to collect the money.
When the victim’s son learned about the incident, he explained to her what happened and came to the conclusion that his mother had been scammed.
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) based scams involving voice-generating technology have greatly increased recently,” the SSFPD said. “It only takes a few sentences and recorded seconds of someone’s audio for their voice to be recreated. As always, be aware of spam calls but especially instances asking for voice prompts.”
In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission said that imposter scams were the most popular type of fraud for that year. Victims lost $11 million over the phone. Officials advise the public to be aware of these scams.
