The Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the Better Business Bureau encourage consumers to follow these tips to reduce the chances of being scammed by a fraudulent celebrity endorsement:
• Slow down. Before you order the product or send money, talk with someone you trust.
• Do some research: search online for the celebrity’s name plus “scam.” Do the same with any charity or cause they’re asking you to support — and learn more about charity scams here.
• Never send money, gift cards or prepaid debit cards to someone you don’t know or haven’t met — even celebrities you meet on social media.
• Don’t trade or invest with a person you have only met online. Don’t speak of your financial position or investments with strangers online.
• Don’t share personal information or current financial status with strangers. Don’t provide your banking information, Social Security number, copies of your identification or passport, or any other sensitive information to anyone online or to a site that you cannot verify is authentic.
• Resist pressure to commit quickly. Be cautious of individuals who claim to have exclusive investment opportunities and urge you to act fast.
• Ask your health care professional about dietary supplements. The government doesn’t review or evaluate supplements for safety or effectiveness before they’re put on the market. Even a natural supplement can be risky depending on your health and the medicine you take, and your doctor knows your health better than a celebrity.
• Get familiar with deepfake technology. Scammers use deepfake technology to trick people. They take real video clips and photos of a person and use them to create new videos and audio clips. Deepfake images and videos can be surprisingly realistic. See this BBB article for tips on spotting deepfakes.
• Understand how AI-generated images work. With AI image generators, you can type in a few words describing the image you want to be created, and the AI generates an image based on your text. It’s valuable technology, but scammers can abuse it to create images to back up their stories, products, or outright lies.
