https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/05/04/larry-magid-ai-voice-cloning-makes-virtual-kidnapping-more-convincing/

Last week I wrote about a call I received claiming my wife had been kidnapped and demanding ransom. It came from a number that was nearly the same as my wife’s, began with a crying distraught woman, and as I explained in the column, the scammer used other tricks to make me think it might have been real. It was an extremely scary 20 minutes before I knew she was OK.

That column resulted in numerous emails, including some from readers who had similar experiences. One grandmother wrote, “A sobbing girl came on the phone claiming to be my teenage granddaughter and using her name. She said she had hit someone with her car and was in the police station. Said she was injured but didn’t want to tell her parents and get in trouble over the accident.”