Every day, thousands of people receive friend requests or direct messages that appear to come from actors or public figures. But experts warn that, behind many of these profiles, scammers hide who use fake photos, empty accounts and even deepfakes to deceive consumers.
Scams can start when you follow the profiles of actors from your favorite show like It happened to one of our producers that, hours after following an actor from the series Task, she received a friend request that claimed to be from the same actor.
But the profile said “this page is an official private page dedicated to my valued followers to warn about fraudulent activities on the internet.”
AARP spokesman Gilberto Cabrera warns: “ “You have to be wary of messages, for example, direct ones, that a celebrity may send you.”
The AARP spokesperson says there are several suspicious things about these accounts such as the fact that they have no photos or posts. “That is one of the first signs. The fact that they have no photos, no videos, no truthful testimonies.”
Cabrera says friend requests on social media – presumably from celebrities – are one of the ways scammers take advantage of consumers.
“In the most recent survey that AARP conducted recently, 276 million people nationwide were targeted by cyber threats,” explains the AARP spokesperson.
And it all starts by establishing a relationship, “the worst thing is that now there are even many accounts in which these criminals are creating altered videos and audios, what are called in English the deepfakes of these celebrities and scam people into buying products that they don’t endorse or even romantically scam them.
The number one red flag is when they ask you for money. “One of the clearest signs is the fact that they ask you for your credit card number. They ask you to give them gift card numbers, to make bank transfers or send cryptocurrency or other forms of payment that are difficult to trace or that the request comes from unknown people.”
If you have received one of these messages or become a victim – report it to the AARP fraud unit – and to the federal trade commission on the page REPORTEFRAUDE.ftc.gov
