In Italy, the father of a famous influencer was the victim of a new scam that will give all parents a cold sweat. Because even if you remain vigilant, it is difficult not to fall into the trap.
Scammers are constantly testing new schemes to fool their victims. Most of the time, they put pressure and play on the effect of urgency and feelings to encourage the person to take action and extract a large sum of money from them. In France, many parents have recently received fake text messages titled “Hello dad”, or “Hello mom”, with text suggesting that the child no longer has access to his phone and that he needs a transfer quickly. But this time, this type of scam goes even further.
In Italy, Christina Bertevello, a renowned influencer followed by 897,000 subscribers, paid the price. His father was cheated out of 2000 euros in no time. In fact, the thugs used the same technique: they pretended to be her daughter, explaining to her that her smartphone was broken and that she must buy another one as quickly as possible. “They asked my father to send me around 2000 euros” tells the influencer in story. But unlike the fake SMS scam, this time the scammers used artificial intelligence. The father therefore thought he had his daughter on the line since it was quite simply his own voice. A series of messages were also sent to him, telling him how to proceed.
Result: the dad believes it, and does it: he follows the instructions received and transfers the requested amount. After realizing the deception, the influencer wanted to inform her subscribers by publishing the messages received. She testifies and alerts Internet users to raise awareness: “Do not send money to anyone. Scammers are becoming more and more cunning, do not give your data and your money to anyone, even if it is your loved ones or of members of your family. I hate artificial intelligence, it’s making its way, because we are more and more lazy to know that anyone can reproduce my voice. We live in a crazy world. , she said.