The call sounds exactly like your daughter, crying down the phone. The voice on the line is your bank's fraud team. The face on the video call is your manager, asking for an urgent favour. But is it really them?
Artificial intelligence has handed criminals a frightening new toolkit. With a few seconds of audio taken from a voicemail or a social media clip, a scammer can now clone a loved one's voice. With a single photo, they can build a convincing video. The old warning signs we were all taught - listen for a foreign accent, watch for clumsy spelling, be suspicious of a bad line - simply do not work any more. The fakes are now fluent, polished and personal.
Is It Really Them? is a calm, practical UK guide for ordinary families who feel out of their depth. Written in plain English, with no jargon and no scaremongering, it explains exactly how today's AI-powered scams really work - voice cloning, deepfake video, "hi mum" messages, romance fraud, fake bank and courier calls, HMRC and police impersonation, and investment cons - and then gives you simple, repeatable habits that stop them in their tracks.
You do not need to understand the technology to be safe from it. You need a plan, a few good habits, and the confidence to put the phone down. This book gives you all three.
What you will learn:
• How AI voice cloning and deepfakes are made - explained in plain English
• Why the old "spot the spelling mistake" advice now fails, and what replaces it
• The single pause that defeats almost every scam call
• A family safe-word system that even a perfect voice clone cannot beat
• How to spot a fake bank, courier, HMRC or police message in seconds
• How to check whether a call, text or video is genuine - in under a minute
• Protecting older parents and relatives without taking away their independence
• Talking to children and teenagers about deepfakes and online manipulation
• What to do in the first hour if money has already gone - and how to claim it back
• The UK numbers that matter: 159, 7726, Action Fraud and your bank's fraud line
A complete toolkit you can use today:
The final section is a set of cards, checklists and scripts you can photocopy and keep by the phone - a pause card, a family safe-word card, a "before you pay" gate, a household fraud plan, a scam-spotter checklist and a single page of key UK contacts. Practical pages, made to be used, not just read.
This book is for you if:
• You worry about an elderly parent or relative being targeted
• You have had a call, text or message that simply felt wrong
• You want clear, honest answers rather than a technical lecture
• You would far rather prevent a scam than try to recover from one
• You want one calm, trustworthy book to share with the whole family
Fraud now costs people in the UK more than a billion pounds a year, and the cruellest part is how much of it is preventable with the right habits in place. Read this book, share it with the people you love, and put the kettle on the next time a stranger - or a familiar voice - tries to rush you into acting now.
Written and researched in the United Kingdom and drawn from official UK guidance. Fully updated for the latest AI scam tactics. Published by Silentii Vox.
