My Scam Story #53

I’ll never forget that night—the way the air felt heavy with dread, the way my heart pounded in my chest as I clutched the phone, hearing my mother-in-law’s voice, or what I thought was her voice, trembling with fear. My name is Betsy, and I’m an interior designer in my mid-thirties, living in New York with my husband, John, and our two young children. I have long, dirty-blond hair that’s often tied back in a messy bun, a habit from juggling work and motherhood. John, with his close-cropped hair and athletic build, works in law enforcement, a job that’s always made me feel a little safer—until that night, when even his expertise couldn’t shield us from the terror of a new kind of scam.

It was a typical evening for us. We’d gone out to a natural-wine bar in a cozy spot with dim lighting and exposed brick walls that I’d helped design a few years back. We sipped on a crisp orange wine, laughing about the kids’ latest antics—our five-year-old daughter had insisted on wearing her superhero cape to preschool, and our three-year-old son had tried to “help” by smearing peanut butter on her cape. By the time we got home, the kids were already asleep in their bedrooms down the hall, their soft snores a comforting rhythm in our quiet brownstone. John and I collapsed into bed, the faint taste of wine still on our lips, and I drifted off almost immediately. As a mom, I’m always half-awake, one ear tuned to the slightest sound—a creak in the floorboards, a cry from the kids’ rooms. So when my phone buzzed on the bedside table, I jolted awake, my heart giving a little lurch.

I squinted at the screen, the blue light harsh against the darkness of our bedroom. The caller I.D. read “Mom,” my mother-in-law. It was well past midnight, and my step-mother, who’s in her seventies and a retired party planner, never calls this late. She and her husband, Billy, a dentist, split their time between Maryland, in the warmer months and Florida, in the winter, where they play pickleball and canasta with their retiree friends. I figured it might be a butt-dial—maybe she’d accidentally called while reaching for her glasses on the nightstand. I let it ring, rolling over to nestle back into the warmth of my pillow. But then the phone buzzed again, the name “Mom” flashing insistently. A prickle of unease ran down my spine. Something felt off.

I grabbed the phone and answered, my voice thick with sleep. “Hello? Mom?” On the other end, I heard her voice—unmistakably hers—wailing, a sound so raw it sent a chill through me. “I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” she kept repeating, her words punctuated by sobs. My mind raced. Mom is the kind of woman who’s always composed, the one who’d once organized a 200-person wedding with a smile on her face even as the caterer canceled last minute. Hearing her like this, so undone, made my stomach drop. I thought something horrible must have happened—a tragic accident, maybe. My parents also winter in Florida, and I pictured the four of them—Mom, Billy, my mom, and my dad—in a car wreck on some dark highway, the kind of nightmare scenario your brain conjures in the middle of the night.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked, my voice trembling. Then I heard another voice, one that sounded like Billy’s, firm but strained. “Mom, pass me the phone,” he said, and then, “Get John. Get John.” The urgency in his tone, the way he insisted on John, made me think they didn’t want to break the news to me while I was alone. It felt like a confirmation of the worst. I turned to John, who was still asleep beside me, his chest rising and falling steadily. I shook him hard, my hands shaking. “John, wake up! I think it’s your mom. I think she’s telling me something terrible happened.”

John’s eyes snapped open, and he sat up, instantly alert. He saw the panic on my face—I must have looked wild, my hair tangled, my eyes wide with fear. “What’s going on?” he asked, his voice sharp. “I thought her whole family was dead,” he later told me, describing how I’d been screaming, my voice raw with terror. I shoved the phone into his hands, my breath coming in short gasps. “It’s your mom,” I said again, my words tumbling over each other.

John took the phone, and I watched his expression shift from confusion to something harder, more focused. He’s trained for high-stakes situations, but this was personal. I leaned in close, trying to hear what was happening. That’s when a new voice came through the line—a man’s voice, calm and possibly Southern, with a chilling edge. “You’re not gonna call the police,” he said. “You’re not gonna tell anybody. I’ve got a gun to your mom’s head, and I’m gonna blow her brains out if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

My blood ran cold. I clutched John’s arm, my nails digging into his skin. A gun to Mom’s head? This couldn’t be real. I pictured her and Billy in their Florida condo, the one with the pastel walls and the framed photos of their grandkids on every surface. I imagined a stranger bursting in, holding them hostage for some twisted reason. John, ever the professional, stayed calm. He grabbed his own phone and called a colleague, someone with experience in hostage negotiations, muting the call so the colleague could listen in without being heard. I saw him texting, his fingers flying over the screen: “You hear this?? What should I do?” The reply came quickly: “Taking notes. Keep talking.”

“I want to hear her voice,” John said to the man, his tone steady but firm. I held my breath, praying we’d hear Mom again, that she’d say something to let us know she was still alive.

The man’s voice turned icy. “If you ask me that again, I’m gonna kill her,” he snapped. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“O.K.,” John said quickly, his jaw tight. “What do you want?”

The man demanded money—five hundred dollars, to be sent through Venmo. It was such a small amount for a human life, and yet it felt like a cruel joke. I nodded at John, my eyes brimming with tears. Of course, we’d pay it. I reasoned that maybe someone had broken into their home, desperate for cash, and this was their way of getting it. The man gave John a Venmo account, but it didn’t work. He tried a few more, his voice growing impatient, until one finally went through. The app prompted for a description of the transaction.

“Put in a pizza emoji,” the man instructed, his tone eerily casual.

John sent the money, and then the man patched in a female voice—his girlfriend, I assumed. She confirmed the money had come through but said it wasn’t enough. John asked if his mother would be released, and the man got agitated, as if he didn’t want the woman to know the full extent of what was happening. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “Baby, I’ll call you later.” That detail made it feel even more real to us—like we were overhearing a private moment between criminals. The man then demanded an additional two hundred and fifty dollars, saying he needed it to get a ticket for his “baby mama” to join him. John sent the money, and once it processed, the man hung up.

The call had lasted about twenty-five minutes, but it felt like hours. I collapsed against John, sobbing, my whole body shaking. He held me for a moment before turning to his colleague, who was still on the muted line. “You guys did great,” the colleague said, his voice a lifeline in the chaos. He told us to call Billy directly, since Mom’s phone was clearly compromised, to make sure they were safe.

My hands trembled as John dialed Billy’s number. It rang once, twice, three times—each second stretching into eternity. Finally, Billy picked up, his voice groggy but familiar. “Hello?”

“Dad, are you at home? Are you O.K.?” John asked, his voice cracking. He put the phone on speaker so I could hear.

Billy handed the phone to Mom, who sounded confused but fine. “Yeah, I’m in bed,” she said. “Why? What’s going on?”

I let out a shaky breath, relief flooding through me. They were safe. But as the adrenaline faded, a new kind of fear settled in. We’d been scammed—not by a real kidnapper, but by something far more insidious. John’s colleague explained that this was a new type of scam, one that uses artificial intelligence to clone voices. The voices we’d heard—Mom’s wails, Billy’s urgent tone—had been faked, pieced together from who-knows-what recordings to create a terrifyingly convincing illusion.

I still jump every time my phone rings late at night. The scam stole more than our money—it stole our sense of safety, our trust in the voices we know so well. But it also taught me something: in a world where even the most familiar things can be faked, we have to hold on to what’s real—our love for each other, our instincts, our resilience. John and I are working through it, one day at a time, but I’ll never hear a phone buzz in the dark the same way again.