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DOVER, Fla.<\/strong> – A Dover<\/a> woman said she lost $15,000 in an elaborate scam where criminals used artificial intelligence<\/a> to impersonate her daughter.<\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n Sharon Brightwell said the ordeal began last Wednesday with a frantic phone call, and she said the voice on the line was unmistakable.<\/p>\n READ: <\/strong>Sarasota County solar panel door-to-door salesman accused of battery<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “When I picked up the phone, it was my daughter’s voice,” Brightwell recalled. “It was her crying voice, she was hysterical.”<\/p>\n The caller claimed she had been in a car accident involving a pregnant woman while texting and driving and her phone had been confiscated by authorities, explaining why she was calling from a different number.<\/p>\n A man who identified himself as a public defender then took over the call, telling Brightwell that her daughter had been taken into custody and needed to post $15,000 in bail immediately.<\/p>\n MORE:<\/strong> Testimony continues in Shelby Nealy sentencing trial<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “I said, \u2018You have got to be kidding me,\u2019” Brightwell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n But desperate to help, she did as instructed, withdrawing the money from her bank account and waiting for a so-called “legal courier” to arrive at her home in Dover. She handed over the money.\u00a0<\/p>\n “When I saw them pull off, I had the most sick feeling in my stomach,” she said.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before Brightwell reached her real daughter and realized she\u2019d been scammed. She\u2019s now sharing her story in hopes of warning others about the emerging threat of AI-based voice scams<\/a>.<\/p>\n READ: <\/strong>‘He needs to be locked away:’ Grady Judd on arrest of former coach accused of sexual battery on young gymnast<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “I absolutely don’t want anybody else in our community, in our state, or anywhere else to have to go through this,” she said.<\/p>\n How It Happened:<\/p>\n Brightwell believes the scammers used artificial intelligence to clone her daughter’s voice, possibly pulling clips from social media videos to create a convincing imitation.<\/p>\n “I’m telling you, there was nothing that could have convinced me that that was not my daughter’s voice that day,” she said.<\/p>\n She also suspects the scammers researched her family online before making contact.<\/p>\n “The agony I went through that day, that\u2019s just evil for people to do that to a family,” she said.<\/p>\n MORE: <\/strong>Stolen gun among weapons seized from suspected drug trafficker in Bradenton: Police<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n After taking the money, the scammers called again, demanding an additional $30,000. Brightwell didn\u2019t send more and eventually called the authorities.<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n Hillsborough County detectives are now investigating the case. While they have not publicly confirmed the use of AI, law enforcement officials said these types of scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated and harder to trace.<\/p>\n They warn the public to be cautious when anyone asks for money, even if the voice on the phone sounds familiar.<\/p>\n The Source:<\/b> Information for this story came from an interview with Sharon Brightwell.<\/p>\n Hillsborough County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a>Artificial Intelligence<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOVER, Fla. – A Dover woman said she lost $15,000 in an elaborate scam where criminals used artificial…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,6082,3188,41154,50,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-71634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-crime-publicsafety","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-hillsborough","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-technology","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114872172082506676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ai-scam-victim-2.jpg\")
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