Police in St. John's are warning the public about a sophisticated phone scam in which callers pose as the children or grandchildren of senior citizens. At least eight seniors fell victim to it in a three-day period.
Jane — not her real name — was stunned, but promised to help without telling his parents. The phone was handed over to a police officer, who gave her instructions on how to post bail. Her unconditional love for her grandson cost her $58,350 by the end of the next day.Const. James Cadigan, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary's media relations officer, says the goal of such scams is usually to go after a large sum of money in a short time frame.
CBC News has spoken to four of the eight victims listed in court documents but isn't naming them due to privacy and security concerns. Cadigan said the RNC has recovered some money, but they say they suspect Gillen was able to mail out packages of money before attempting to leave the province.Jonathan Anderson, an associate professor at Memorial University with a focus on computer security and privacy, says it's relatively easy to fake someone's voice.
"You can clone someone's voice, and given the ability to do that, it's not at all surprising that somebody would do that for nefarious purposes," Anderson said. "It's going to be more effective, especially while people get used to the fact that deepfake voices are a thing, and they are easily obtainable and easily accessible."
Anderson checked a box when he signed up saying he wouldn't do anything illegal. Is that enough to keep others from using it for nefarious reasons?
This will be a huge problem !
It is terrible how scammers prey on the gullible.
Phone companies could be doing a lot more to stop this. Implement a 'this is a scam' button and investigate.
One called me and opened with ' hi Grandma..... its your nephew'. Right. I hung up.
Had a call like this in HamOnt
Darn Jamaicans
So why do the police not use the technology that the phone companies have available to them? If the Canadian government can block news coming from Russia surely they can block a business's phone number. FFS!