A 3-hour phone call that brought her to tears: Impostor scams cost Americans billions
Imposter scams are top U.S. fraud now: Con artists are using new technology to get real time information plus voice cloning and caller ID spoofing to make it even harder to tell truth from fiction.
It was a Monday in the middle of the day when Valeria Haedo got a phone call from a number she didn't recognize. She doesn't normally pick those up, but she did that day. The caller said his name was Officer Robert Daniels from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and he had a warrant for her arrest.
He told Haedo she could verify him by Googling his name and department. She did, and it checked out. But what Haedo didn't realize in that moment is she'd just been targeted in an intricate scam. She was kept on the phone for more than three hours and eventually brought to tears.
