Martin Lewis has issued a frightening warning about a new trick that's being reported which uses AI to fake your child's real voice - and then scam you with it .
The 'dystopian' new scam was revealed by the money expert on the latest episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast for the BBC.
Martin Lewis told his listeners he felt 'emotional' after one of his own family members fell for a scam this week before he revealed the new con which can use your child's real voice.
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Martin said he is now hearing of an extremely sophisticated new type of scam emerging involving the use of AI, which scans social media in order to build up a voice profile of someone, and then uses it to call someone's parents, pretending to be their child.
He added: "They are using AI to manipulate their voice, and then the voice will call up someone's parents and they will have a voice and the scammer will talk to them in their child's voice.
"That is the dystopian world we are moving to. This is not something any of us can ignore. It's not something any of us can think 'it's not gonna happen to me'."
During the same episode, Martin revealed how a 'close relative' was duped in a more traditional scam recently.
He said: "I had a close relative of mine scammed yesterday which is why I'm quite emotional about it, and it was quite difficult.
"And this person who is an older member of the family was quite upset about it. And they were called by 'Microsoft Security Essentials'. And as soon as they started to tell me about it I said 'that's a scam, why would Microsoft call you?'.
"They said 'because there was fraud and scams on my computer'. I said, 'yeah but Microsoft wouldn't call you, you just own Windows, that doesn't come with a telephone service arrangement.'
"'Yeah no but they were really, really good, they showed me the fraud and they went through everything with me'.
"'Oh you didn't let them access your computer?
"'Yes'."
"I said 'tell me you didn't give bank details', and they said 'well of course because my bank, they had all been exposed and they were going to make sure it was all cleared up'.
Martin Lewis then went on to add that there was a happy ending - this time.
"Thankfully, thankfully I had this conversation, and these absolute - I really wanna swear, please everybody swear for me - these absolute whatevers - have been on the phone for three to four hours. Three to four hours! And just, confidence tricksters. We managed thankfully, only one bank account money had actually gone from and the money was reimbursed [by the bank].
"And I didn't get involved, they didn't reimburse just for me, before anyone says that."
Martin then added: "By the way there's a number - 159 - if you dial 159 from your phone you can access your bank. It's a universal bank number for people in a panic in those situations."
The government recently pledged to do more to tackle fraud after it was revealed that scams and fraud now make up 40% of all crime in the UK.
Actions include attempting to block 'number spoofing' via Ofcom and banning cold calls on financial products.
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