FBI Warns About This Shocking New Smartphone Scam You Need to Know Before It Drains Your Bank Account
- The FBI has issued an urgent alert about a sophisticated scam where criminals use a voice-cloning AI to impersonate a trusted contact, like a family member, over the phone to trick victims into sending money or access codes.
- Scammers are now combining old-school phishing emails with fake FBI agent calls, claiming your identity was used in a crime, to pressure you into transferring funds to a "secure government account" that is actually their own.
- A new tactic involves sending fake texts that appear to be from your bank's fraud department, followed by a call from a number spoofed as the bank—all to steal your two-factor authentication codes and bypass account security.
- The FBI advises to never answer calls from unknown numbers, hang up immediately if asked for personal info in a pressured tone, and always call back the official number from your bank or agency's website to verify any claim.
- If you've already fallen victim, the FBI insists you report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov within 24 hours to freeze accounts and help track the criminal network behind these digital heists.