An Arizona mother recounted the horrifying moment she heard her teenage daughter plead for her life over the phone as an unknown man’s voice threatened to harm her if he did not receive $50,000. She also shared the terrifying rage she felt after when she learned it was just an artificial intelligence voice scam.
Jennifer DeStefano testified to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on Tuesday (13 June) on the harmful capabilities of AI and demanded something be done about the increasingly popular voice phone scams.
“AI is revolutionising and unraveling the very foundation of our social fabric by creating doubt and fear in what was once never questioned – the sound of a loved one’s voice,” Ms DeStefano said.
Ms DeStefano was the victim of an AI voice phone scam in January when she answered a call from an unknown number only to hear the sound of her 15-year-old daughter crying and sobbing.
The Arizona mother recounted how she heard her daughter’s voice saying: “Mom, I messed up” as she cried. When Ms DeStefano inquired about what was wrong she was surprised to hear a strange man’s voice.
“Suddenly a man’s voice barked at her: ‘Lay down, put your head back.’ At that moment I started to panic,” Ms DeStefano recalled.
Ms DeStefano’s daughter told her over the phone: “Mom these bad men have me. Help me, help me, help me.”
The unknown man’s voice told Ms DeStefano he was going to drug her daughter, “have his way with her” and drop her off in Mexico never to be seen again if she tried to call the police or anyone else. He requested $1m from her.
She described the situation as “every parent’s worst nightmare.”
Ms DeStefano said she began to panic and asked one woman with her to call the police and her husband to try and locate their daughter. Meanwhile, she began negotiating with the man to try and save her daughter.
The man lowered the supposed ransom to $50,000 but asked Ms DeStefano to deliver the money, in cash, to a van with a bag over her head.
As Ms DeStefano was speaking with the man, the woman who called the police and her husband told her the police had heard about similar voice scams and that her husband was with their daughter safe and sound.
“I did not believe her because I had just spoken to my daughter and I was very sure of her voice and very sure of her cries,” Ms DeStefano said.
After speaking with her actual daughter, who was very confused about the situation, Ms DeStefano realised what had happened.
Ms DeStefano recalled: “I knew she was safe and I was furious. I lashed at the men for the horrible attempt to scam and extort money. They continued to threaten to kill Brie. I made a promise that I was going to stop them and they were never going to hurt my daughter or anybody else again. At that point, I hung up and collapsed to the floor in tears of relief.”
After, Ms DeStefano reached out to the police but they told her it was a “prank call” and since no crime had actually been committed they could not do anything about it.
“Money scams have been around for thousands of years, this is entirely different,” Ms DeStefano said. “This is terrorising, lasting trauma. Even months later the story makes me shake to my core.”
Ms DeStefano is one of many who have faced similar calls from people using AI to mimic their loved ones’ voices to extort money or information.
As part of her testimony, Ms DeStefano asked Congress to create legislation to regulate AI and impose consequences for those who use it for nefarious reasons – like the call she received.
