\u201cTo go around and plant fake fear into people, that is not called for,” Erika Anderson said. “You don\u2019t understand the damage that you do mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville mother is warning parents about a terrifying AI-powered prank that used her daughter\u2019s voice and image in a spoofed FaceTime call.<\/p>\n
Erika Anderson, a lifelong Jacksonville resident, said she was working at home last month when a FaceTime call popped up from her 17\u2011year\u2011old daughter\u2019s contact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s her contact, and I\u2019m like, what\u2019s she calling me for because I know she\u2019s in school,\u201d Anderson recalled.<\/p>\n
When she picked up, the voice sounded and looked just like her daughter, down to her school shirt and the way she spoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was like, ‘Hey mommy, open the door,’ and I\u2019m like, ‘Open the door? What do you mean, open the door?'” Anderson recalled. “She was like, ‘I\u2019m sick, I don\u2019t feel well.'”<\/p>\n
Suspicious, Anderson asked what they had had for dinner the night before.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mommy\u2019s brain kicked into play like something is not right,” she said. “I started asking her all the questions that she would know the answer to, and the person was like, ‘Oh my God, mommy, I don\u2019t know the answer, I don\u2019t know, just open the door, oh my God.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson hung up, checked her home security cameras and saw no one at the door.<\/p>\n
She called her daughter\u2019s school, where staff confirmed the teen was in class taking a test and had her phone locked away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m scared,” Anderson said. “I go get them from school.”<\/p>\n
She later learned the call was a prank using an AI\u2011driven app, which cloned her daughter\u2019s voice and image.<\/p>\n
Police were contacted, and the family of the teenager behind the prank apologized. Anderson chose not to press charges but has since tightened security at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have now made code words,” she said. “I changed the alarm in my house. I changed the camera angles. As a matter of fact, we added 2 more cameras.”<\/p>\n
Anderson posted the story on TikTok. It has racked up nearly 20 million views, with thousands of viewers saying they, or close relatives, have experienced the same AI\u2011powered FaceTime prank.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these people start flooding my comment section saying this happened to me, this happened to my mom, this happened to my sister, this just happened to my cousin, this is real, and I\u2019m like, but how?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Law enforcement says these kinds of scams are becoming more common as generative AI tools become easier to access.<\/p>\n
The Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office says it is seeing a surge in reported cybercrimes, including AI\u2011facilitated spoofs, and has assigned detectives in its Economic Crimes Unit to investigate such cases.<\/p>\n
The FBI echoing that message, advising the public always to verify the identity of anyone calling or messaging them, even if the voice and image appear genuine. Officials urge people to hang up, independently call the person back on a known number, and create a family code word that is never shared online.<\/p>\n
The FBI also recommends looking for subtle imperfections in video or images, such as distorted hands or feet, unrealistic teeth or eyes, inaccurate shadows or watermarks, and for voices that sound just a little off.<\/p>\n
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, spoke at a press conference Thursday, warning AI\u2011generated content can blur the line between real and fake.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we live in a real reality or do we live in a fake reality?” he said. “It\u2019s hard to tell the difference, and they can do it in ways that that could potentially be harmful to you.”<\/p>\n
Anderson now wants anyone thinking about an AI prank like this to stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo go around and plant fear, fake fear into people that is not called for,” she said. “Please don\u2019t because you don\u2019t understand the damage that you do mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTo go around and plant fake fear into people, that is not called for,” Erika Anderson said. “You…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":781544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-781543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781543","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=781543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}