Latest news with #SharonBrightwell
Perth Now
21-07-2025
- Perth Now
Sharon Brightwell: Mother cruelly tricked by AI scammer who used her own daughter's voice to steal from her
Sharon Brightwell fell victim to a scammer after they used her own daughter's voice to convince her she was in trouble. Sharon Brightwell fell victim to a scammer after they used her own daughter's voice to convince her she was in trouble. Credit: Sharon Brightwell / Facebook A mother has fallen victim to a heartless scam after callers used AI to pose as her daughter. When Sharon Brightwell picked up the phone on July 9 she heard her own daughter tearfully tell her she had been in a car accident. 'There is nobody that could convince me that it wasn't her,' Sharon said. 'I know my daughter's cry,' she told WFLA. She listened to the caller tell her that she had hit a pregnant woman while texting and driving, and said her phone was confiscated by police. Then the Florida woman heard a male voice who told her he was the lawyer that would represent her daughter. He said the daughter was in custody and needed $23,000 to post bail. Ms Brightwell said the man gave very detailed instructions, and warned her 'not to tell the bank what the money was for' because it would affect her daughter's credit score. In a state of shock she followed the instructions, withdrew the money and placed it in a box as the man had requested. Then a driver showed up to her house and collected the package. This was not the end, and Ms Brightwell received another call telling her the unborn child had died in the womb as a result of the accident, and that the family would not sue if they were paid $46,000. This is when Ms Brightwell's grandson intervened. He arranged a phone call with Ms Brightwell's real daughter on the other line. When Ms Brightwell heard her daughter's voice she 'screamed' and 'broke down'. Her daughter had been fine the whole time. The family suspects the scammers used videos from the daughter's social media to accurately replicate her voice in a cruel and emotionally manipulative scam. They have reported the matter to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and urge other families to take precautions against this sophisticated high-tech scam. Ms Brightwell's daughter has launched a GoFundMe page to cover the cost of the $23,000. On the page, she wrote, that the AI cloned voice sounded 'exactly like her'. 'After you hear your child in distress, all logic is out the window. Nothing would have convinced her that wasn't me.'
Daily Mail
18-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Distraught woman reveals simple trick scammers used to con her out of $15,000
A Florida mother was left devastated after scammers conned her out of $15,000 by mimicking her daughter's voice. Sharon Brightwell believes cruel fraudsters used AI software to imitate her daughter April. The doting mom was sent into a panic after she received a distressed call from her daughter on July 9. The voice on the phone was unmistakable, she told Fox 13: 'When I picked up the phone, it was my daughter's voice. It was her crying voice, she was hysterical.' At the other end of the line was, Brightwell believed, her daughter, April, who said she had been involved in a car accident, that struck a woman who was seven months pregnant. The caller claimed she had been texting and driving, and her phone had been taken by police which explained why she was calling from a different phone number. Another man came on the line claiming to be a public defender and said that April had supposedly been taken to hospital and detained. Brightwell was then given 'explicit' instructions on how to post her daughter's $15,000 bail. 'I said, "You have got to be kidding me,"' Brightwell recalled, but as a mother she was desperate to help. She withdrew the money and waited for a 'legal courier' to arrive at her home in Dover. 'Neither of them know how bail works, or how that would be paid. But it is definitely not like this,' April explained. 'A man in a black Chevy Tahoe showed up and parked on the side of the road at their home and my mom walked cash out to him.' The 'legal courier' appeared nervous, according to Brightwell, and was 'nicely dressed, bald with a short beard. The tag was tinted out.' 'When I saw them pull off, I had the most sick feeling in my stomach,' Brightwell continued. The scammers then called again, and told her that the 'baby' had died and a further $30,000 needed to be handed over. 'They called a close family friend to ask for help and she quickly shouted "NO NO this is a scam." Unfortunately, it was too late for the first chunk of money already given to these poor excuses for human beings,' April wrote. It was when April started texting her son, who was with Brightwell, on her lunch break that 'it all came together.' Brightwell believes that the scammers used AI to mimic her daughters voice, and it was done so well that she had no idea it wasn't her on the other end of the line. 'I'm telling you, there was nothing that could have convinced me that that was not my daughter's voice that day,' she said 'My mom and son were in absolute shock. Our friend then added me to a 3-way call so that my mom could hear my voice. I have never heard the sounds she made when she heard that I was fine,' April said. 'No babies had died in an accident that I cause, and I was not going to jail. I will never forget how she cried that day.' April said she rushed to be with her family and found her son on the driveway. 'When I drove up and he saw that my car was not wrecked, and I was completely fine, he hunched over to throw up. Then came and hugged me almost hyperventilating,' she continued. Brightwell believes that the scammers used AI to mimic her daughters voice, and it was done so well that she had no idea it wasn't her on the other end of the line. 'I'm telling you, there was nothing that could have convinced me that that was not my daughter's voice that day,' she said. She also suspects that the scammers had been researching her family online before the incident. Brightwell reported the incident to the police, but unfortunately this type of scam is becoming increasingly sophisticated and harder to trace, Hillsborough County detectives told Fox News. April wrote on a GoFundMe that scammers are sometimes using Uber package couriers to pick up packages who 'likely' have no idea what's going on. She wrote that the Uber will be subpoenaed and an investigation is underway, but the likelihood of recovering her mother's money is 'zero.' 'To tell you the trauma that my mom and son went through that day makes me nauseous and has made me lose more faith in humanity... My mother was sobbing on the phone with them, thinking I had been not only in a horrific wreck, but that a baby's life had been taken,' she continued. 'The scammers continued without hesitation or remorse.' Law enforcement have urged the public to be cautious of anyone asking for money, even if the voice seems familiar.
The Hill
16-07-2025
- The Hill
Florida woman conned out of $15K after AI clones daughter's voice
DOVER, Fla. (WFLA) — A Florida woman wants to warn others after falling prey to an elaborate AI-powered scheme that used cloned audio of her daughter's voice to demand thousands of dollars in fake bond money. Sharon Brightwell told Nexstar's WFLA that the ordeal began last Wednesday when she received a call from a number that looked like her daughter's. On the other end of the line, a young woman was sobbing, claiming to have been in a car crash. 'There is nobody that could convince me that it wasn't her,' Sharon said. 'I know my daughter's cry.' The caller said she had hit a pregnant woman while texting and driving and claimed her phone had been taken by police. A man then got on the line, claiming to be an attorney representing her daughter. He told Sharon that her daughter was being detained and needed $15,000 in bail money in cash. 'He gave very specific instructions,' Sharon said. 'He told me not to tell the bank what the money was for, that it could affect my daughter's credit.' Following his instructions, she withdrew the money and placed it in a box as directed. A driver showed up to her house to pick up the package. But it didn't stop there. Sharon received another call saying the unborn child had died and that the family, described as 'Christian people,' had agreed not to sue her daughter if she provided another $30,000. That's when her grandson stepped in. He was on the phone with a family friend who quickly called Sharon directly this time with her real daughter on the line. 'I screamed,' Sharon said. 'When I heard her voice, I broke down. She was fine. She was still at work.' The family believes the suspects used videos from Facebook or other social media to create a convincing AI-generated replica of her daughter's voice. 'I pray this doesn't happen to anyone else,' Sharon said. 'My husband and I are recently retired. That money was our savings.' Now, the family is urging others to take precautions, including creating a private 'code word' to verify identities over the phone in emergency situations. 'If they can't give it to you,' Sharon said, 'hang up and call them directly.' A report has been filed with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The family also launched a GoFundMe campaign to help recover their financial losses.
