The rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence and deepfakes has given scammers powerful new weapons.
Abigail Ruvalcaba was intrigued when a handsome daytime soap opera actor she’d been watching for years reached out to her in a Facebook message.
His rugged exterior softened by his piercing blue eyes and an almost shy smile disarmed her. She answered him, pushing away any doubts as to why the Emmy winner would suddenly contact her.
They talked on the phone. He sent her videos professing his love for her. They made plans to buy a beach house so they could start their lives together.
The problem was she was making plans not with “General Hospital” star Steve Burton, but with a scammer who intended not to romance her, but to swindle her. In the end, the scheme led Ruvalcaba to sell her home to send money to the bad actors.
Fraudsters using promises of love and companionship to cheat the lonely is a crime as old as Victorian novels.
But the rapidly advancing world of artificial intelligence and deepfakes has given scammers powerful new weapons. And increasingly, they are using the likenesses of celebrities like Burton to lure victims.
Burton had no idea this exchange was taking place but said he has had numerous encounters over the last few years in which strangers approach him and insisted they have been chatting.
“I get a thousand messages a day and 100 of them are people who think they’re talking to me on other apps—Telegram, WhatsApp—my agent, my manager, my publicist, nobody will be reaching out to you,” Burton said in a Facebook video warning his fans of such scams. “Please be careful. You are not speaking to me anywhere unless I message you back from my Instagram @1steveburton.”
In 2023, nearly 65,000 people reported being a victim of a romance scam with reported losses reaching a staggering $1.14 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The use of artificial intelligence has only made the swindle easier. Now, thieves can pretend to be nearly anyone with a large enough digital footprint, including celebrities whose voices and likeness are widely accessible.
And experts say situations where scammers pretend to be celebrities to extract money from well-meaning fans are far from rare.
“Even if you don’t want a Cinderella story, you can’t deny that a Cinderella story would be nice,” said Ally Armeson, the executive director of the nonprofit FightCybercrime.org. “You may not be yearning for it, but I would be hard-pressed to point to a person that wouldn’t want to be adored by a celebrity.”
Last year, YouTube deleted thousands of AI videos on its platform that purported to show Taylor Swift, Joe Rogan and Steve Harvey pitching a Medicare scam.
Harvey told CNN this year that scams using his likeness are at an “all-time high.”
“I prided myself on my brand being one of authenticity, and people know that, and so they take the fact that I’m known and trusted as an authentic person, pretty sincere,” the “Family Feud” host told the outlet. “My concern now is the people that it affects. I don’t want fans of mine or people who aren’t fans to be hurt by something.”
In 2024, a San Diego woman lost her life savings to a scammer pretending to be actor Keanu Reeves. Earlier this year, a French woman came forward publicly to say she had lost $855,000 to a scammer who used AI-generated content while pretending to be Brad Pitt. She faced such an intense barrage of criticism online that the network that aired the interview with her took it down.
Armeson said her organization has helped victims whose scammers were portraying public figures who included Elon Musk, Britney Spears, Mila Kunis, Brad Pitt, Trace Adkins, Jelly Roll and, before his death, Val Kilmer.
In April, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introduced the NO FAKES Act, which aims to protect the voice and likeness of individuals from computer-generated re-creations from generative AI and other technology.
Celebrities have even gone as far as to warn their fans not to trust any communication from them that comes from social media.
Those who work with victims of internet crimes say the thieves prey on people’s most basic desires: to be loved. By the time Ruvalcaba realized she was ensnared in an elaborate romance scam bolstered by the use of artificial intelligence, she had lost nearly everything.
