You will be able to verify a caller's identity in a way a deepfake cannot pass.
Your phone rings. It's your younger brother, or it sounds exactly like him. He's panicking, he's been in an accident, the other driver wants cash or he'll call the police, and could you transfer S$3,000 right now. Your heart is pounding. Every instinct says help him first and ask questions later.
That instinct is what the scam is built on. Lesson 5.2, Real cases: the Arup video call and fake leaders, ended with a principle: seeing and hearing someone isn't proof, so verification has to come from somewhere else. This lesson gives you three ways to do that, which work even when the fake is perfect, plus the version you need at work.
A safe word is a word or short phrase agreed in advance between family members, which anyone asking for urgent help must be able to say. If the caller can't give it, you don't send anything, however real they sound.
It works because a scammer can copy a voice but can't copy something that was never recorded. For that to hold, three things matter.
Agree it in person, or on a call you started yourself to a number you already had. Never send it in a chat, an email or a text message, since accounts get hacked and phones get lost.
Choose something nobody could guess from your social media. Not a pet's name, a school, a street or a favourite team. A random pairing works well, such as "blue durian" or "Tuesday kopi", as long as everyone can remember it.
Use it for any urgent request for money, codes or passwords, every time, even when you're sure it's really them. The rule only protects you if it's automatic. If you start making exceptions for calls that "obviously" sound real, you've stopped using it for exactly the calls that are designed to sound real.
The second habit is the callback. If a call asks for money or codes, end it and call the person back on a number you already had before the call, such as the one saved in your contacts.
Don't use a number the caller gives you, a number in a message they send, or the number shown on your screen, since caller ID can be spoofed. Scam-proof your money teaches the same rule for banks and officials in lesson 2.3, Verify by calling back on a number you found yourself. Here it applies to family, friends and colleagues.
Ending the call is the hard part, especially when a voice you love is crying. It helps to have the words ready. Something like: "I want to help you. I'm going to hang up and call you straight back on your number. If this is real, pick up." A real family member will understand. A scammer will push you to stay on the line, change the story, or claim their phone is broken. That pressure is itself a warning sign.
If the callback doesn't connect, call someone else who'd know: their partner, a parent, a flatmate. Don't send money while you wait.
Sometimes you don't have a safe word agreed yet, or you're dealing with someone outside the family. The third tool is a question only the real person could answer.
The trick is choosing the right kind of question. Avoid anything that might appear online: birthdays, pets, schools, holiday destinations, the name of their workplace. Scammers research their targets, and those answers are often a quick search away. Pick something private and specific instead, such as what you ate together last time you met, what they gave you for your last birthday, or a family joke that never left the dinner table.
A question is weaker than a safe word, because a scammer might guess or bluff, and a stressed caller might fumble a real memory. Use it as a backup, alongside the callback.
At work, the Arup case shows what's at stake. The rule there is that any change to payment details, and any urgent or unusual transfer, needs a second person and a second channel, every time.
A second person means one employee can't approve the payment alone, however senior the requester seems. A second channel means the request is confirmed through a different route from the one it came in on. If the request came by email or video call, confirm it by phoning the requester on a number from the company directory, or speaking to them in person.
"Every time" is the important part, as with the safe word. Scammers target exactly the moments when the rule feels like an obstacle: a busy Friday, a senior person in a hurry, a deal that's "confidential". A rule everyone follows without exception means nobody has to judge whether this particular boss is real.
If your workplace doesn't have this rule written down, it's worth raising with your finance team, and lesson 8.2, What goes in a team AI policy, gives you a place to put it.
When a suspicious call comes, the hardest moment is the first few seconds after you decide to check. Having your own exact words ready, the ones you'll use to end the call politely and call back, makes that moment much easier.
Write the exact words you would use to end a suspicious call politely and call the person back on a known number.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).