The detective's comments highlight a crucial aspect of modern scams: the integration of advanced technology with traditional social engineering tactics. The use of AI-generated voices, in particular, represents a significant escalation in the capabilities of fraudsters. This technology allows scammers to create highly convincing impersonations, bypassing one of the traditional defenses against phone scams - recognizing that the caller's voice doesn't match that of the person they claim to be.
Saeger also shed light on how scammers obtain the voice samples necessary for such impersonations. "They call, and when you answer, and it's a scammer, there's silence," she explained. "They want you to say 'hello' or 'is anybody there?' aLL they need is three seconds of your voice to input it into AI and to clone it." This revelation underscores the importance of being cautious even during seemingly innocuous phone calls.