Say this one phrase to immediately catch an AI phone scammer
Experts are warning that AI-powered scam calls are getting polished enough to sound personal and convincing, which means the old “I’ll know it when I hear it” method is starting to fall apart. According to them, asking “are you AI?” is useless. But one weird question could trip up that AI-powered voice on the phone, however real it may sound. It’s called the “car wash test.”
Read on to find out how it works.
The “car wash test” is basically a confusion trap
These newer calls are not clunky or obviously suspicious. They can sound calm, responsive, and weirdly believable. Some even use personal details or cloned voices to make the call feel familiar enough that you stop questioning it.
And once that happens, the scam has already done half its job.
It is crucial to note that AI has removed a lot of the old friction from scams. Now the scam can sound polished and personal, and it can do that at scale. That means more calls, more believable scripts, and more chances for someone to get caught off guard.
To avoid getting caught in such a web, one expert recommends asking something odd. Something deliberately off-pattern. An example is: “I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?”
A person will instantly hear the problem. After all, if you walk, the car you are going to wash at the car wash stays behind. But some AI systems reportedly answer in a more generic, logic-light way, like recommending walking because it’s a short distance or because it’s better for your health or for the environment.
Voice cloning makes things worse than they used to be
Experts say scammers can now clone a voice using only a few seconds of audio. That means the problem is no longer just fake strangers calling from unknown numbers. It’s the possibility of hearing a voice that sounds familiar enough to lower your guard.
That is also why the advice around family safe phrases keeps coming up. If something feels urgent and emotional, having a simple phrase only your family would know can do more than caller ID ever will because at this point, a voice alone is no longer proof.
Source: Express
