DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
From Venezuela living abroad, had the same output on a different situation.
Family was traveling to EU from Caracas, called directly without texting first via cell phone to get an idea of how ready they where to depart and all the anticipation for the trip and boom, seems like someone I don’t know is handling the phone.
Thoughts racing on my head: we’re they kidnapped, were they kidnapped? What is actually happening?
I tried to reach out using other providers and even going trough a landline, same output. A voice saying they’ll get to the phone soon and calling them to come and pick up the device. Super unsettling.
Then my wife’s phone rang via WhatsApp and it was them, they were there saying are ready for the trip and that all was on track unbeknownst to all the events.
So, without going into a lot of detail I think is by design from the current administration of narco dictatorship in Venezuela. A friend’s and family VoiP company loyal to their leaders routing by default on their own carrier once the calls go onshore within their network.
A way to make money out of this is routing calls trough a maze of providers of their own to catch a “a quarter a minute” and spread unsettling thoughts on the general population who has family abroad.
After this we all started a group on Signal and hoped for a better way to communicate privately.
Consider getting VoIP phone numbers from a jurisdiction that’s much less hostile, so you have another number available to use