Cpl. Jennifer Cooper says phone scams can use AI to copy your family's voices, so it's important to stay diligent if something seems off.

By Tommy Osborne

AI Fraud

AI scams can copy your voice, police urge caution

Nov 20, 2025 | 4:25 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Artificial Intelligence is growing increasingly more sophisticated, and with that the Prince George RCMP are warning that it’s use in scams and fraud is also becoming more convincing.

“Some of the ways that we’ve seen AI be used is to take some audio that you have online — say you are a content creator or you like to post videos online — AI can take small snippets of your voice and use that to make entire conversations,” said Corporal Jennifer Cooper.

Cooper says this has been used to scam parents and grandparents especially, where the scammers can replicate your child’s or your grandchild’s voice and create an urgent situation where money is needed immediately. On top of this, Cooper says online tools can also copy phone numbers, so it may appear you’re getting a phone call from a legitimate number, but it’s actually a scammer’s number masked with a number you know.

“They’ve used AI to duplicate it or mask their number with that legitimate number, so you can’t tell the difference anymore between where the calls are coming from. In that instance, we would caution people to stop giving information, not speak with the caller, but instead initiate your call yourself by dialing it in physically into your phone,” Cooper said.

“If a family member calls and is sounding like they’ve been in an accident or they’ve been arrested and require money immediately for lawyers fees or to get out of jail, hang up and call that family member yourself, or come up with a family safe word that’s completely random, isn’t related to anything, isn’t your name or your last name or anything, so that you can ask the caller for the family safe word and then if they’re able to produce it, maybe that’s a little bit more of an indication that you would be talking to your your loved one,” she continued.

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Cooper adds this type of scam isn’t used just to replicate family members, it can also copy banks. Similar to the family scam, Cooper says these scams can copy the number of your bank to appear legitimate, and will also create an urgent situation that makes the victim desperate to resolve it, which can result in a case of fraud if you aren’t careful. In situations like these, Cooper says the scammers will often try to get more information out of you than normal.

“It’s subtle things that you don’t think of when they ask you to confirm details. Maybe they’re asking you for more details than the bank would, but it sounds similar. So instead of asking you to confirm the last four digits of your bank card, which a bank would ask for, they ask you confirm the last eight digits, which now gives them access to your whole credit card or debit card number,” she said.

“Maybe they have one person’s information, but they don’t have the information on your spouse if you have a spouse or joint account holder, little things that the bank would have that we might not realize that is odd to be asked,” she continued.

Other giveaways can include the scammers asking for bitcoin or giftcards, which is a more common sign that is more commonly recognized, but Cooper advises that with AI tools making fraud more sophisticated, even legitimate sounding calls can be dangerous, so staying vigilant goes beyond just these more common indicators.

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