Maybe this holiday season, you'll get a call from a loved one — a child away at college, a grandchild, your niece in Virginia — and they'll tell you exactly what they want for Christmas. And, well, they just happen to be online at a site that has it on sale.
All you have to do is give them your credit card number now and they can buy the hard-to-find item that you can give them as a gift.
Watch out, it could very well be a scam — and we're not just talking about a real relative with a never-ending holiday wish list.
Scammers only need a short audio clip to use artificial intelligence to make a call seem like it's coming from someone you know who is asking you for a special gift for the holidays, warns Detroit Police Department officer Jalon Nelson, who serves as a public information officer for the department.
The old "grandparents scam" — where victims are asked to send cash to get a grandchild out of jail — can easily morph into something else and seem pretty believable. Con artists gather information in advance and craft a narrative that would strike a chord with you.
