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Globally, fake celebrity endorsements in online publications and social media have become a common tactic used by scammers to exploit unsuspecting consumers.
These scams involve using well-known celebrities’ names and images to lend credibility to products or services that typically don’t deliver the promised results. The allure of products that claim to be endorsed by celebrities can easily entice people into making purchases without thoroughly verifying the legitimacy of the claims.
It doesn’t stop there!
Once consumers make an initial purchase, scammers can gather their online payment or banking card information and personal details. This information is used for fraudulent activities that can include making unauthorized purchases, identity theft, and even completely draining victims’ bank accounts!
These scams can have devastating financial and emotional consequences for the victims, who not only lose money but must deal with the aftermath of identity theft and financial fraud.
In association with the Noakes Foundation for your best interest
This research initiative is sponsored by the The Noakes Foundation. After being falsely associated with various product endorsements over the years (most recently, “Keto Gummies”), Emeritus Professor Tim Noakes and The Noakes Foundation set about trying to prevent this diet phishing fraud by raising public awareness and supporting related research from 2022.
It quickly became apparent that fraudulent celebrity endorsements are a huge scam industry and that there is a desperate need to increase the public’s awareness of the types of scams that occur.
Through research and information gained from the public, plus those celebrities who have been subject to identity theft, researchers are improving the public’s knowledge of these scams. Sharing new research insights with the public and celebrities should hopefully help to protect more people from being lured by false endorsements and scam ads.
The research team also strives to use the public’s feedback to bring attention to where social media companies (notably, META’s Facebook and Instagram, but also Microsoft’s LinkedIn and Elon Musk’s X!) can do better in preventing the scams they promote. There is also a need for search engines (such as Alphabet’s Google) to hide results for scam publications.
