She Was At Puregold; The Clone Was On My Phone — How A Selfie And A Safety Protocol Saved Our Circle

The notification came as I was sorting the ledger in our WhatsApp group. “Please send now, ate. The wholesaler is at the gate.” It was my sister Liza’s voice—urgent, trembling, familiar.

I didn’t hesitate. I opened the BDO app, verified the details, and rushed the transfer. ₱230,000. Our paluwagan’s entire quarter savings for the Noche Buena grocery bulk buy.

A minute later, she sent another voice note. “They say they’ll leave if it’s not cleared, Maria.” My hands shook as I confirmed the payment, heart pounding like I was the one waiting at the gate.

Five minutes later, my phone rang again. This time, it was Liza herself. She was laughing, and the background noise was pushcarts and a cashier saying, “Next, please.”

“I’m at Puregold. Why are you crying?” she asked.

That was when my stomach turned to stone. Because if she were at Puregold, then who was the Liza on my phone? And how did she know everything—from our group name to the exact wholesaler’s number?

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My name is Maria Dela Cruz. I am 30 and was born and raised in Quezon City, Manila. I’m a marketing assistant by day and a treasurer by trust.

Our paluwagan, Bayanihan Circle, was born during lockdown. Twelve women, ranging from nurses to hairdressers, saved monthly for bulk groceries and a memorial fund cover. We laughed, prayed, and called ourselves the group that feeds each other.

Every December, we would buy rice, oil, and sugar in bulk and store them in Aling Gloria’s sari-sari store. When the economy tightened, our paluwagan became a safety net not just for food but for dignity.

I was the youngest, but they trusted me with digital tasks—setting up transfers, keeping receipts, and recording everything in the ledger app.

Liza, my sister and oldest friend, wasn’t in the group, but she was our go-to liaison for wholesalers. Her charm got us better discounts. She ran a small catering business, and her TikToks were full of smiling deliveries and Tagalog proverbs.

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She always said, “Ang tao ay tao dahil sa kapwa niya tao” (a person is a person because of people), and that spirit built our trust.

So when her voice came through that Friday afternoon, I didn’t question it.

I remembered how a delay had cost us a delivery the previous year because the wholesaler refused to wait for “committee confirmations.” We lost ₱6,000 in late fees. I swore never again.

That day, I was home early. Brownouts were threatening, and we’d just cleared the monthly reconciliation. Everyone had sent their contributions. ₱230,000 sat ready in the account.

When the voice note came through, I didn’t even think to video call.

It was Liza’s voice—the same tone, the same small click in her speech when she said, “Please.” She even mentioned our late uncle’s memorial list, asking if I’d used the same bank account name.

There was no reason to doubt her.

Until that second call.

Until her real laughter came from the Puregold queue, casual, happy, like she hadn’t just sent a desperate message.

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And I realized, with ice running down my spine, that someone had cloned her.

I froze.

“Liza,” I whispered into the phone, my voice breaking, “you just asked for money.”

“What money?” she said, frowning through the line.

The group notifications were already pinging. Carla had seen the transaction screenshot I posted, proof that I’d done my duty.

“Maria, we said the wholesaler comes tomorrow,” Carla typed. “Why did you pay now?”

I read the words again and again, my breath caught between disbelief and shame.

I opened the voice note. Played it loud. Everyone in the group confirmed, “That’s Liza’s voice!” Same laughter, same background noise that sounded like her house.

But the real Liza was already sending me selfies—one of her at Puregold, holding yoghurt cups. Timestamped.

That’s when panic turned to horror.

I tried calling the number from the voice note. It was a newly registered WhatsApp Business Account with Liza’s exact profile photo and the same status: “Catering is love made visible.”

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Within minutes, the number vanished.

I rushed to the bank. They confirmed that the funds had gone through to a GCash account, one that was opened less than a week ago. “Ma’am, we’ll lodge a recall,” the consultant said gently. “But chances are small. Scammers move fast.”

My body felt heavy, my ears hot.

By evening, the whole group was gathered in our chat, the mood sour and sad. Carla was angry but mostly heartbroken. “We trusted the process, Maria. You trusted too much.”

I typed apologies until my thumbs hurt.

Later that night, Liza came over, holding her phone with trembling hands. “Maria,” she whispered, “that’s me. That voice—it’s my TikTok clip. Someone spliced it.”

She showed me one of her old videos, a skit in which she said the exact phrases: “wholesaler,” “please send,” “they’re waiting.” Only now did the voice note have a new context and urgency added.

We reviewed her TikTok comments, trying to see if anyone had scraped information. Then I remembered something chilling. Two weeks earlier, I’d accidentally made public a photo of our memorial contribution list in the group. It had full names, phone numbers, and bank references.

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The fake Liza used those names and even called me “Maria Dela Cruz, our treasurer,” like an insider.

The next morning, I went to PNP Sampaloc. The officer listened quietly, then sighed. “You’re not the first,” he said. “Deepfakes. They’re getting better.”

He opened a case but warned that recovery was rare. Still, we had to try.

Later, I called a friend at UP Diliman, Paolo, a computer science student. He analyzed the voice note, zooming in on tiny clicks and waveforms.

“There’s artifacting,” he said, pointing at his laptop. “See this? The breathing pattern doesn’t match. It’s AI-generated.”

My heart sank—and swelled with anger. Someone had taken my sister’s face, her voice, her kindness, and used it to steal from women saving to feed their families.

Paolo’s report became our lifeline. He wrote a summary explaining how deepfakes are created, utilizing audio samples from public videos and combining them with AI to replicate emotion and tone.

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He demonstrated how the scammer had likely laid the groundwork for their plan weeks prior by joining community pages, commenting on posts, and establishing familiarity.

Even the memorial list had helped them appear “real.”

We returned the evidence to the PNP, who filed it under the Cyber Fraud Division. But the bigger twist came from the bank. Two weeks later, they called. ₱60,000 had been frozen in a mule account before the transfer.

It wasn’t everything, but it was a start.

We gathered at Aling Gloria’s house for an emergency meeting. The circle was broken, trust fractured like glass.

Then Lola Dudu, our eldest member, stood up. She said, “Technology is clever, but so are we.”

She proposed a Lola-proof safety protocol, simple, low-tech, rooted in language and presence.

First rule: rotating the Tagalog passphrase, which she alone could set, changed every meeting. Second: mandatory video calls before any payment, with the ledger in frame and handwritten one-time codes. Third: dual approvals—both the treasurer and the secretary must sign off. Fourth: No transfers after 5 p.m. Fifth: In-person voucher cash-outs only, no direct supplier transfers.

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We called it our Bayanihan Shield.

Liza cried as we wrote the new rules on a poster: “NO VOICE NOTES. NO RUSH. NO EXCEPTIONS.”

Then, to heal the damage, we did something powerful. We took the story public.

With Paolo’s help, we demoed deepfakes at our church youth group and at jeepney terminals, showing how easy it is to fake voices. People gasped as they heard cloned pastors and politicians.

Soon, even local radio invited us to share.

Through it all, our group began to trust again—not because of technology but because we made rules that honored both old wisdom and new threats.

The months that followed tested us. We paid a small six-month levy to recover what was lost. The ₱60,000 from the bank became our seed. Every member contributed ₱1,500 extra each month until the gap closed.

By December, we were whole again. When our groceries arrived, neatly stacked and labeled, tears filled our eyes. It wasn’t just about rice and sugar. It was about resilience.

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Liza had changed, too. She deleted old TikToks and made new ones teaching digital safety. Her first video went viral: “If they rush you, they rob you,” she said, “even if it sounds like your sister.”

Paolo helped us create a workshop for community paluwagans. We showed the elders how to spot suspicious voice notes. We became the “techwise sisters” of Quezon City.

The PNP case was still open, but what mattered was that we’d built something more substantial—trust fortified by boundaries.

I learned to forgive myself. It took weeks before I could touch the ledger again without shaking. But when I finally wrote our balance in blue ink, I felt something lift, guilt turning into gratitude.

One evening, as we closed our meeting, Lola Dudu smiled. “You see, Maria, our ancestors let us learn the hard way so we could teach others.”

And she was right.

A few weeks later, we were invited to a community expo. Our stand had one message written above the kettle: “NO VOICE NOTES. NO RUSH. NO EXCEPTIONS.”

Women approached us in tears, telling us how they had almost sent money after falling victim to similar scams. The bank even invited us to speak at a customer safety forum.

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When I sat there, microphone in hand, I thought back to that day—the Puregold selfie, the panic, the shame. And I realized that sometimes, the same technology that tricks us can also save us if we use it right. Because that selfie—a simple photo taken in a grocery store—was proof of life, proof of truth.

It was the thing that separated my sister from her clone.

And it saved our circle.

I still keep that selfie printed inside my ledger. It reminds me that trust must evolve. It can’t just be love and loyalty anymore. It must also be verified.

What broke us wasn’t gullibility. It was speed—that rush to act before thinking, the same rush that scammers exploit.

We were raised to help first, question later. But in the digital age, that kindness can be weaponized. Now, before making any payment, I whisper our new mantra: “Maghinay-hinay ka, Maria.” (Take your time, Maria.)

And I do. Because taking time saves us—and sharing our stories may save others.

When I look around at our circle now, women laughing, phones in hand, screens filled with video calls and codes, I see a new kind of unity. Not blind trust, but informed trust.

So here’s the lesson: Even in a world of deepfakes, the truth still leaves fingerprints—in a smile, a shadow, or a Puregold selfie.

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We just have to slow down long enough to see them.

So I leave you with this question: If the same voice you loved cried for help, would you pause to check, or would your heart override your head like mine did?

This story is inspired by the real experiences of our readers. We believe that every story carries a lesson that can bring light to others. To protect everyone’s privacy, our editors may change names, locations, and certain details while keeping the heart of the story true. Images are for illustration only. If you’d like to share your own experience, please contact us via email.

Source: YEN.com.gh