What to Do If Someone Calls Claiming to Be Your Child

First: stop. Don’t send anything yet.

Everything about these calls is built to make you act before you think. The voice is familiar. The story is terrifying. There’s a deadline. You may be told to keep it secret. That pressure is the scammer’s weapon, and your single best defense is to refuse to act while you’re under it. Nothing a real loved one needs is so urgent that it can’t wait the 60 seconds it takes to verify.

The steps, in order

1. Hang up. It feels rude. Do it anyway. You are not hanging up on your child — you are hanging up on a story you haven’t verified.
2. Call back on a number you already have. Use the number saved in your phone, not one the caller gave you. If your child picks up and has no idea what you’re talking about, you just stopped a scam. If you can’t reach them, keep trying — don’t go back to the original caller.
3. Ask for your family safe word. If you’ve agreed one, ask for it now. A cloned voice can’t produce a secret it was never told. If you haven’t agreed one yet, ask a question only the real person would know — not something a scammer could pull from social media.
4. Move to a second channel. A video call, a text to their known number, a call to their spouse or roommate. The more channels a scammer has to fool, the harder it gets. A voice clone on a phone call is one channel. Adding video and a separate person is a check most scams can’t pass.
5. Never send money, gift cards, or crypto to stay on the line. Gift cards and cryptocurrency are the scammer’s favorite because they’re hard to reverse. Any “emergency” that requires payment by gift card or crypto is a scam, full stop.
6. In a real emergency, contact authorities directly. Call 911 or your local equivalent. If someone claims your child is in danger, the police can verify it. Don’t rely on a caller, and don’t rely on any app. Use your own judgment.

Red flags that should stop you cold

• The caller begs you not to tell anyone — especially a spouse or parent.
• There’s a ticking clock: “before the bank closes,” “before the police call,” “in the next hour.”
• Payment is asked for in gift cards, wire transfer, or cryptocurrency.
• The call came from a number that looks right, but the story doesn’t quite fit — the details are vague, or the voice says things your child wouldn’t say.
• You’re passed to a second “authority” — a lawyer, a doctor, a police officer — who reinforces the urgency.

None of these alone proves a scam. But the more you see, the more you should slow down and verify on a channel you already trust.

If you already sent money

Act fast, but don’t panic. Call your bank or card company immediately and report the transfer as fraud — the sooner you call, the better the chance of reversing it. File a report with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and with your local police. If you sent gift card numbers, contact the issuer right away; sometimes they can freeze the balance. Then tell someone — these scams rely on secrecy, and breaking it is part of stopping them.

Make sure it doesn’t happen again

Once you’ve caught your breath, set up the defenses you didn’t have in the moment. Agree a family safe word — one word, only your circle knows it, asked for on any urgent call. And consider a tool that makes the check automatic instead of something you have to remember under pressure.

SecureRing generates a rotating safe word on your device and shows it right on the call screen during a verified call. Calls inside your trusted circle are signed by the caller’s device, so you can confirm a call came from a trusted device — not a stranger on a spoofed line. No app can guarantee a caller’s identity. SecureRing doesn’t try to. It makes verify before you trust the easy, default thing to do — so next time, the check happens before the panic does.

SecureRing is a supplemental safety aid, not a guarantee and not a substitute for emergency services or your own judgment. If you believe someone is in immediate danger, contact authorities directly. See our Terms and Privacy Policy.