SCAMMERS are getting dangerously creative these days, fine-tuning their ‘craft’ by targeting their potential victims’ loved ones to manipulate their emotions, eventually giving in to their demands.
A woman recently shared her cautionary tale on Facebook about her experience dealing with a scam caller who tried to manipulate her into paying a ransom by using her child.
Marlene Zahari claimed to have received a phone call around 2pm from a man yelling in Bahasa that he had kidnapped her son, while threatening her to “pay up” in order to see her child again.
“Marlene!! Listen here. Now, your son is with me. You can hear him right?!” the scammer said during the conversation.
“He knew my name but did not have any other details such as the gender and age of my child,” Marlene said in her post.
Marlene said that when she did not respond to him, he resumed threatening her and ordered his accomplice to “ beat up the so-called child”. She was also certain that the scammer used some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to “clone” her son’s voice, citing a prior case from the US.
“Then there were sounds of struggle, crying and screaming in the background. But the sounds were unclear and I was unable to make out the child’s voice.
“As he was screaming threats at me, I sent a text message to my eldest whom I hoped was still in school and he responded saying he was in school and even saw his sister during their lunch break,” she added.
Marlene said that she remained silent during the call until the man got tired of her and hung up.
She was not the scammer’s only target as her circle of friends informed her that people they knew also went through a similar experience.
“A friend’s sister got the same call. Luckily she had heard about this scam. Another friend told me that her colleague got the same call the day before I did and has lodged a police report,” she explained in her post.
