Criminals are using AI technology to clone people’s voices and set up unauthorised direct debits over the phone, according to new evidence from National Trading Standards. The advanced voice cloning is part of an organised criminal operation that harvests people’s personal data to target victims with a wave of scam and nuisance calls. [AI or 'Artificial intelligence' is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. — Wikipedia]
The process begins with a so-called ‘lifestyle survey’ phone call — seemingly harmless, but in fact designed to gather detailed personal, health and financial information. The criminals use this data to develop AI-generated voice clones used to simulate consent for direct debits, deceiving even legitimate businesses and financial providers. These details appear then to be passed or sold to other criminal operations who, with the details, can easily circumvent the banks and set up payments without the victim’s knowledge. Victims often do not realise payments are being taken.
The details are revealed as new data, released today by National Trading Standards [NTS], show that:
- On average, UK adults receive 7 scam calls or texts per month
- 1 in 5 (21%) receive scam calls or texts most days — and almost 1 in 10 (9%) receive them daily.
- NTS blocked nearly 21 million scam phone calls and shut down 2,000 numbers in six months.
Through Operation Derdap, NTS has blocked nearly 21 million scam phone calls and shut down 2,000 numbers in the last 6 months. The operation began in 2022 when it was identified that UK consumers were being cold-called and coerced into providing financial and personal details to the criminals, who then took continuous payments from consumers’ accounts.
[Scams that have come to our notice locally are reported on at /news-blog/?Search=scam]
