How do you protect yourself from voice cloning scams?

Do not decide from the voice. A cloned voice can sound like a relative, a colleague or an official, and people are poor at telling the difference. Protection comes from a routine you follow every time: hang up, reach the person on a number you already have, and check the request with someone else. A scammer controls the call and the voice, but not the number you dial, so a call-back gives you a route the caller cannot cut off.

Listening is not enough to catch a clone

In a 2023 PLOS ONE study, listeners spotted speech deepfakes only 73% of the time ¹, which means the rest went unnoticed. The FBI advises you to verify the identity of the person calling you or sending text or voice messages ². That advice does not depend on how convincing the voice sounds, which is the point. Verification has to happen through a channel the caller does not control.

Step 1: Hang up and do not send money on the call

Scams of this kind rely on urgency. The FTC advises that, when a caller claims a relative is in trouble, you should resist the pressure to react and send money immediately ³. Hang up, even if the caller ID shows a name you know. If the caller says the matter is urgent or must stay secret, treat that as a warning, because the pattern depends on you acting before you check.

Step 2: Call back on a number you already have

Do not call back the number the caller gives you, because a scammer can supply a number they control. Use a number you already have, such as the one in your contacts or on a card, and reach the family member or friend directly. The FTC says to use a phone number you know is right to call or message the family member or friend who supposedly contacted you ⁴.

Step 3: Check with a second person

If the first number does not answer, ask someone else who would know: another relative, a friend, or a colleague who can reach the person. Two independent routes make a scam harder to sustain than one. This step matters most when the request is for money you would not normally send.

Step 4: Use a safe phrase agreed in advance

A safe phrase is a secret shared before anyone needs it. Starling Bank, a UK bank, says a phrase that no one else knows lets close friends and family verify that they are really speaking to each other ⁵. A clone can copy the sound of a voice, but it cannot know a phrase that was never spoken in a recording.

Choose a phrase that cannot be guessed from your social media or public records, use it for money requests and urgent changes, and do not write it down where someone with access to your phone can find it.

Why the scam works, and where it has cost the most

Starling Bank found that 28% of UK adults think they have been targeted by an AI voice cloning scam in the past year ⁶. That is a survey of beliefs rather than confirmed cases, but it shows how widely the threat is now expected.

One case was at a company. According to the company and police, an employee of the engineering firm Arup in Hong Kong paid out $25 million to fraudsters after a deepfake scam ⁷. The same routine works for a company: verify a payment request through a route you already trust, and never on the number or channel that made the request.

It depends on who is asking

• Family emergencies. Use the call-back and the safe phrase, and check with a second relative before sending money, even if the request asks for secrecy.
• Work requests. Confirm a payment or account change through the company's own directory or a known contact, not the number in the message. A second approver is a sensible step for any large transfer.
• Officials. The FBI has warned that AI voice messages claimed to come from senior US officials ⁸. Contact the agency on a number you find independently, not the one in the message.
• Bank and account calls. Do not approve changes on a voice check alone. Call the institution back on the number printed on your card or statement.

Reduce what a scammer can copy

You cannot remove every recording of your voice, but you can reduce the easy ones. Keep your voicemail greeting generic, remove clips you have posted that you do not need, and review any service that stores your voice. For the question of whether a stored recording can be used to make a clone, see our answer on stored voice recordings. For how much audio a clone needs, see how much audio it takes to clone a voice, and for why voice checks fail, see whether voice authentication is still secure.

A routine you can keep

Write the steps down for the people you would be called by. Agree the safe phrase in person or on a call you trust, set the call-back number in advance, and tell them the rule: anyone who asks for money in a hurry gets a call-back before anything is sent. The routine works because it does not depend on recognizing the voice, which is the one thing a clone is built to fake.

For the wider picture of how these scams work and what regulators say, read our guide to voice cloning and deepfakes. The overview of voice privacy covers how voice data is stored and shared, and the glossary entry on voice cloning explains the term.