A Florida woman says she was conned out of $15,000 by a scammer who used artificial intelligence to replicate her daughter’s voice.
Sharon Brightwell, who lives outside of Tampa, told WFLA that she was targeted by scammers last Wednesday after receiving a call from a number that appeared to belong to her daughter, April Munroe. When she picked up, Brightwell heard her daughter’s hysterical voice claiming she had hit a pregnant woman with her car while texting and driving.
“There is nobody that could convince me that it was not [her voice],” Brightwell told WFLA. “I know my daughter’s cry, even though she’s an adult, I still know my daughter’s cry.”
Monroe was in Carrollwood, a nearby suburb at the time, she wrote on a GoFundMe page to help recoup her mother’s money.
“My voice was AI cloned and sounded exactly like me,” Monroe wrote. “After you hear your child in distress, all logic is out the window.”
A man then took the phone and claimed to be Monroe’s attorney. He told Brightwell he needed $15,000 cash to pay her bail. She couldn’t tell the bank what it was for or else her daughter’s credit would be affected, the man said.
“He says, ‘Can you do that?’ I said ‘Not really, but yes,’” Brightwell told WFLA. “I’ll do whatever I have to do for my daughter.”
Brightwell withdrew the money from her bank and put it inside a box, which she then gave to a driver who showed up at her house.
Soon after, Brightwell received another call from someone claiming to be a relative of the pregnant woman her daughter supposedly hit. They said the woman’s unborn baby had been killed in the wreck and they wanted $30,000 cash, or else they’d sue.
Monroe says her son was with Brightwell the whole time and was in “just as much panic and worry.” He realized it was a scam after Monroe texted him on her lunch break.
“Then it all came together,” Monroe wrote. “My mom and son were in absolute shock.”
Monroe immediately left to go be with her mother and son. Monroe’s son “hunched over to throw up” when he first saw her and realized she was safe, she said.
“To tell you the trauma that my mom and son went through that day makes me nauseous and has made me lose more faith in humanity,” Monroe wrote. “Evil is too nice a word for the kind of people that can do this.”
Brightwell and her family encourage people to take proactive steps to prevent scams, such as coming up with a “code word” to use in emergency situations, WFLA reports.
Monroe said she filed a police report, and an investigation is underway. The Independent has contacted the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department for comment.
