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They call with your child's voice: the clone scam

How the fraud that uses AI to impersonate a relative’s voice works, how a family code word helps and what to do if you’ve already sent money.

Ibrahin · Published on 3 September 2026 · 5 min read

Text drafted with artificial intelligence. The topic, the angle and the final review are Ibrahin's. How AI is used here

An older woman looks warily at the phone screen in her hand, in her living room: an incoming call from an unknown number, with no contact name
Illustration generated with AI for this article. The number shown on screen is invented.

What has happened

According to INCIBE, with artificial intelligence tools a few seconds of recording are enough to generate audio with another person’s voice. INCIBE published a real case handled by its 017 helpline: a woman answered and heard her husband’s voice saying “Hi! I can’t call you, send me a message on this number”. It seemed very strange to her, so she didn’t write and called her husband on his usual number. He hadn’t called her.

It isn’t new: that case is from June 2024. In February 2026 INCIBE published another: an older woman got a call from a supposed health worker asking her to pay for an urgent operation on her daughter, then heard a voice identical to her daughter’s, crying. According to INCIBE, that voice was probably created with AI. Before paying, she called her daughter on her usual number: it was all a lie.

Why it matters to you

The call is short on purpose: an unknown number, a voice you recognise, an excuse (“my phone’s broken, write to me here”) and then, by message, the request for details or an urgent transfer. The voice only has to last long enough for you to trust it; the deception continues in writing, where it no longer sounds odd.

The recording can come from a video of you on social media or from those calls where you pick up and nobody speaks: INCIBE points to them as a possible source in the 2024 case. And it’s aimed at whoever has the savings and the fright, not whoever has the newest phone.

What you can do

1. Agree a family code word

  • Make it impossible to guess: not the dog’s name, not grandma’s village, nothing that appears on your social media.
  • Don’t write it on your phone: say it once in person and remember it.
  • Make sure the older members of the family know it, not just the young ones.
  • If someone calls in a hurry asking for money, ask them for the word. If they don’t know it, hang up and call the usual number yourself.

2. During the call

  • Check with that person through the usual channel: their saved number, not the one that shows up or the one you’re given.
  • Don’t give personal or bank details, however urgent it sounds.
  • Don’t follow instructions: no links, no apps, nothing to install “to fix it”.
  • Afterwards, warn your contacts, block the number and report it to the police.

3. If you’ve already sent money

  • Call your bank as soon as you notice to try to stop the payment, and ask for written proof of the payment.
  • Cut contact and block the number.
  • Keep all the evidence: screenshots, numbers, conversations and receipts.
  • Report it: in Spain, to the Policía Nacional or the Guardia Civil; in the UK, to Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud in December 2025 (in Scotland, call the police on 101); in the US, to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, if you lost money, to the FBI at ic3.gov. Then give your bank a copy of the report or its reference number.
  • If your bank doesn’t resolve it, complain to it in writing. In Spain, if it doesn’t reply within 15 working days or you disagree, you can then go to the Bank of Spain; in the UK, to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

A warning almost nobody gives: in Spain, the bank must immediately refund a transfer you didn’t authorise, unless there was fraud or gross negligence on your part. But for the Bank of Spain a transfer is “authorised” when you give your consent. If you were tricked into making it yourself, it generally isn’t covered by that immediate refund and getting the money back is much harder. In the UK it’s different: since 7 October 2024, banks must refund most victims of scams like this when the money went by UK bank transfer (Faster Payments or CHAPS), up to £85,000 (minus an excess of up to £100 at some banks), if you report it within 13 months and weren’t grossly negligent. Elsewhere, ask your bank straight away. Even so, five minutes of prevention are worth more than any claim.

4. Get free help

If you’re in Spain, INCIBE’s helpline, Tu Ayuda en Ciberseguridad, is free and open every day from 8:00 to 23:00: phone 017, WhatsApp 900 116 117 (save it in your contacts first) and Telegram @INCIBE017. You don’t have to have fallen for anything to call.

The recommendation

A voice no longer proves who is calling. Faced with any call asking for money or details in a hurry: hang up, call the usual number yourself and, if you have a code word, ask for it.

Sources

Review

Responsible for publication: Ibrahin. Date: 2026-09-03. Last checked: 2026-10-17. Sources: INCIBE (real cases from the 017 helpline, 2024 and 2026, and “The relative-in-trouble scam”, 01/04/2026), the Bank of Spain, the FBI, the FTC, GOV.UK and the PSR.