Shocking as it sounds, a Florida family has become the latest victim of a scam that used AI to clone a daughter’s voice. Sharon Brightwell received a distress call that mimicked her daughter, April Monroe – complete with emotion and even the familiar sobs – leaving her convinced that her daughter was in dire straits following an accident.
Despite obvious red flags such as a mismatch in the phone numbers and an odd narrative involving the police confiscating Monroe’s mobile, nothing could shake Brightwell’s certainty. “There is nobody that could convince me it wasn’t her. I know my daughter’s cry,” she later told WFLA.
The call then took another twist when a man posing as Monroe’s solicitor requested $15,000 for bail, instructing her not to mention the true purpose of the funds to the bank – a tactic designed to safeguard the scammer’s ploy at the expense of her family’s savings. Shortly after, an even more alarming follow-up call demanded an additional $30,000, under the pretense that a pregnant victim’s child had died, promising that no legal action would follow if their demands were met.
The grim reality only began to unravel when Brightwell’s grandson confirmed that Monroe was, in fact, safe, even allowing her to speak with her mother directly. Overwhelmed with relief, Brightwell recalled the moment with palpable emotion: “I screamed. When I heard her voice, I broke down. She was fine.”
Monroe, sharing her experience on GoFundMe, summed up the trauma succinctly: “After you hear your child in distress, all logic is out the window.” Meanwhile, her family now believes that the scammers likely used publicly available social media videos to create a convincingly realistic AI clone of her voice. To prevent such a scenario in the future, they plan to implement the use of code words for verification purposes.
Brightwell’s distress is compounded by the realisation that the money – the couple’s life savings following their recent retirement – has vanished into a well-orchestrated trap. A report has been filed with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, a stark reminder of how technology misuse can have very human consequences.
