With just a few seconds of audio, a bad actor can clone your voice well enough to fool your own mother. The tools to do this are inexpensive, fast, and require zero technical skill. I tried it out with my own voice to show you how easy it is.

Here’s a sample voicemail greeting for me (no, I don’t actually have one, and neither should you; just use the default).

“Hey, you’ve reached Tate’s phone. I’m not here right now. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back.” - my actual voice.

Using these 7 seconds of audio, I generated 2 deepfakes of my voice that can be used in scams. It took less than 30 seconds to create these.

Mixed in here is 1 actual recording that I did. Can you pick which one is real and which is a deepfake?

Sample 1:

“Hey mom, it’s me. I’m okay, but I’m in a bit of trouble and I really need your help right now. I got into a small accident, my phone is busted. That’s why I’m calling from a different number. I’m fine, I promise, but I need you to send me $2,500 on Zelle as soon as you can. Please don’t tell dad yet or anyone. I’ll explain the whole thing when I see you. I just need to handle this fast. Can you send it right now? I’ll text you where in a minute.”

Sample 2:

“Hey Dan, it’s Tate. I’m jumping on a call with the lead investor in like 5 minutes and I just realized I’m missing something. Quick favor, can you forward the master credentials doc to my personal Gmail? I need to pull a couple of numbers before this call starts. Also, Sidecar is asking us to wire the closing fees today, it’s 12 grand. I can’t do it from this phone, just kick it off and I’ll send the wire details over Signal in 2 minutes. Thanks man, you’re saving me.”

Sample 3:

“Yo, it’s me. So dumb story, my phone got lifted at the bar last night and I’m using a buddy’s right now. Long story short, I’m trying to get a flight home in the morning and I’m short on cash. Can you Venmo me 400 bucks? I swear I’ll pay you back the second I land. I just don’t want to bug mom and dad with this one. Send it to a different handle though. This guy is letting me use his account so I’ll text you the username in a sec. Appreciate it bro, I owe you.”

The right answer is at the bottom of the post!

These voice fakes become even more effective the longer the sample is that the AI can use to generate the deepfake. In this case, it took only 7 seconds of audio. Imagine what can be done with a longer sample, like an Instagram post, a video, a podcast, etc. Voice samples are everywhere now.

I used a voicemail greeting as my example because it’s extremely common and most people have one.

Why This Matters For All of Us

For years, the way we verified that “this is really my dad on the phone” came down to two things:

The voice sounds like him.
The number is his number.

Both of those pillars are broken now.

Voice cloning is trivial (you just heard the proof). Caller ID is also easily defeated. Phone numbers have been spoofable for a really long time. A bad actor can make your phone display your mother’s name and number while a stranger is on the other end of the line.

Even if you’ve trained yourself to do the right thing (hang up and call your loved one back at their real number), bad actors have a ready-made answer. “I was in a car accident, I don’t have my phone, I’m calling from a stranger’s phone.” It’s a perfect excuse. It explains why the number doesn’t match. It adds urgency. It pulls on the exact emotional response the scammer is trying to create.

So now we have a voice that sounds exactly like your loved one, a plausible reason they aren’t calling from their normal number, and an emergency that demands immediate action and money. These scams work really well, and any one of us is susceptible.

What You Can Do Right Now

I’ve written about family emergency scams before, and the playbook hasn’t changed. What HAS changed is how good the fakes are getting. The advice still holds.

1. Pause and Verify. Always. There is time. Even in a real emergency, there is time. Slow down, hang up, and verify through a different channel. Text the person directly. Call their normal number. Call another family member who would know.

2. Set up a family codeword. Pick a word that only your immediate family knows. It should be something not used in everyday conversation. If you ever get a call from a “family member” claiming an emergency, ask for the codeword. If they can’t say it, it isn’t them. (Bonus tip: agree on a “duress” codeword too, for the rare situation where someone is being forced to call.)

3. Delete your custom voicemail greeting. That cheerful “Hi, you’ve reached Tate, leave a message” recording is the perfect 7-second voice sample for a bad actor. Switch your voicemail back to the default robotic greeting. While you’re at it, lock down your social media so videos with your voice aren’t public.

4. Have the conversation with your family today, especially with parents and grandparents. The single most protective thing you can do is make sure everyone in your family knows this is possible. An informed family member has a much higher index of suspicion. That is the difference between “I sent the money” and “Wait, this doesn’t add up.”

5. Stay tuned for Rebound’s Trust Check product, which is designed specifically to help us verify the people we trust. It will be free, and it’s coming soon. If you want to be an early tester, you can sign up here.

The hard truth is that the old tools for verifying a loved one (their voice, their phone number) are no longer reliable. We need new ones. We are actively working on solutions that give families a way to verify each other in moments that matter, without relying on signals that bad actors can fake.

Sign up to be a Rebound Alpha Tester

The Reveal

Ready?

Sample 2 was Me.

The point isn’t if you were right or wrong, it’s to demonstrate how easy and how good these deepfakes are. And this was a very simple and crude example. Personalized scams like this are only going to become more widespread.

If you got it right, don’t get overconfident. Hopefully, you won’t experience this type of scam, but if you do, you won’t be able to compare the voice to anything but your memory. And again, these are only going to get better and better.

Have the conversation with your family this week. Pick a codeword. Delete your custom voicemail.

Subscribe now

Stay Safe,

Tate

I Cloned My Voice From a Voicemail Greeting…