Scammers Clone Daughter’s Voice To Extort $50,000 from Michigan Mom

A Grand Rapids mother nearly lost $50,000 over the weekend due to a sophisticated AI scam that utilized voice cloning technology, as first reported by Wood TV8 on Monday.

Mary Schat, whose daughter attends Hope College, experienced a terrifying incident on Sunday morning. While she was reading the news, she received a call from an unknown number in Holland.

“It didn’t say potential spam or anything. So, I thought, well, my daughter is in Holland,” Schat explained. “I better answer it. Maybe this is about her.”

Upon answering, she heard her daughter’s voice, but it sounded distressed. “I said, ‘Dori, you have to help me understand you. You need to calm down,’” Schat recalled. “What’s going on? I heard, ‘They’re taking me. They’re taking me.’”

Then a male voice intervened, claiming to be part of a Mexican cartel. He said her daughter had been in a car crash and demanded a ransom of $50,000 for her release, instructing Schat to meet at a nearby hardware store.

Panic set in as Schat thought about the situation. “When it’s your own daughter, I’m like, heck yeah. I’m going to give whatever they need. I was ready to go to the ATM machine,” she said.

While she negotiated with the caller, her husband contacted local dispatch and learned the call was likely a scam. He reached out to their daughter, who was safe at her apartment.

“It was definitely her voice. A mother knows her daughter’s voice,” Schat said, shocked by the replication of her daughter’s voice.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) calls this scam voice cloning, enabled by software that can replicate a voice from a small audio sample. “I thought I was very aware of these hoaxes and these scams,” Schat said. “It was completely terrifying.”

To avoid such scams, the BBB advises against acting immediately or sending money, and recommends contacting the involved person first.