A cold call asks you to take a "lifestyle survey" — your voice is recorded and cloned by AI to authorise payments
Criminals cold-call claiming to run a lifestyle survey, asking personal, health, and financial questions. The call secretly harvests your voice. An AI clone of your voice is then used to authorise direct debits and bank transfers by phone — without your knowledge. National Trading Standards flagged this via Operation Derdap, which blocked 21 million scam calls in six months.
Also known as: AI voice cloning scam UK, lifestyle survey phone scam, voice cloning direct debit fraud, AI synthetic voice bank fraud UK, phone survey voice harvest scam
Already happened to you? Do this in the next few minutes
- 1 Call your bank or card's fraud line right now. Use the number on the back of your card — not any number from the message or caller. Ask them to stop or reverse the payment and freeze the account.
- 2 If you paid by gift card, wire, or an app (Zelle, Venmo, Cash App): contact that company immediately and report it as fraud. Acting fast sometimes recovers the money.
- 3 Report to the FBI at ic3.gov and the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. The sooner, the better.
What to do right now
- 1 Never answer survey questions from unsolicited cold calls — hang up immediately and call back any organisation on a number you find independently.
- 2 Review your bank statements and standing orders/direct debits regularly; if you see an unfamiliar authorisation, dispute it with your bank immediately as an unauthorised payment under the Payment Services Regulations.
- 3 Ask your bank or building society whether they offer a 'no voice-authorisation' flag on your account — some providers allow you to opt out of phone-based verbal authorisation.
- 4 Register your number with the Telephone Preference Service at https://www.tpsonline.org.uk to reduce cold calls, though determined scammers may still call.
- 5 Report to Report Fraud at https://www.reportfraud.police.uk or call 0300 123 2040.
Red flags
- ⚠ You receive an unsolicited call from someone claiming to conduct a 'lifestyle', 'wellbeing' or 'consumer' survey — no legitimate survey company needs to record your voice over the phone to answer standard questions
- ⚠ The caller asks a long series of questions including health, financial habits, and personal details — the breadth of questions is unusual for a genuine survey
- ⚠ You later discover direct debits or transfers you did not recognise — and your bank says they were 'authorised by voice' or 'verbally confirmed'
- ⚠ You receive follow-up calls from the same or related numbers offering products based on details you only gave during the survey call
- ⚠ The caller's number shows as withheld, overseas, or a spoofed local number
Sources
- National Trading Standards — Operation Derdap: phone scams take sinister twist as victims' voices cloned (2026)
- Which? — Beware of survey phone scams: AI voice cloning used to make fraudulent payments (2026)
- Friends Against Scams — New AI voice cloning scam to look out for (2026)
- Royal Borough of Greenwich — Phone scam uses AI to clone victim's voices (2026)
- Northumberland County Council — Operation Derdap update: voice cloning survey scam remains active October 2026
- North Wales Police — Warning of rise in deepfake and voice cloning scams targeting families, employers, bank staff (6 June 2026)
- STV / AOL — Criminals using AI to clone victims' voices and set up direct debits (June 2026)
- National Trading Standards — AI Scam Watchlist launched: voice cloning named as top-five AI fraud technique; Operation Derdap confirmed active (30 September 2026)