Para 1:
Imagine scrolling through your social media feed and seeing a familiar face—perhaps a well-known TV presenter, a politician, or a business icon—enthusiastically endorsing a “life-changing” investment opportunity. In a world where video feels unshakably real, your instinct may be to trust it. That is precisely the trap that scammers are now laying for ordinary Australians, and they are doing it with increasingly sophisticated tricks. The corporate watchdog, ASIC, has updated its grim warning: these investment scams are on the sharp rise. And the reason why we are so vulnerable is because many of these endorsements are completely fake, generated by artificial intelligence as deepfake videos. The AI creates a likeness so convincing that it can be difficult to tell whether that person is really saying something or not. That is the new reality of modern grifting—not a stereotypical conspiracy, but a technically masterful con, aimed at getting their hands on private money. ASIC has just released a report showing that more than 19,000 scams have been removed from the internet in the past year alone—a worrying 182 percent increase from the previous year. Behind each statistic is a person, maybe a friend or family member, who trusted an ad, clicked a link, and then lost a modest savings or a wealth cascade to an offshore scam website that seemed completely plausible. And while Australia is not the most reluctant to fight this monstrosity, the problem is itself becoming more difficult to stop because the line between reality and deception is being blurred by artificial intelligence.
Para 2:
The method is frighteningly simple, and it starts with social media ads. Scammers pick a familiar, trusted public figure—perhaps Anthony Albanese or Alan Taylor, the opposition leader at the time; Gina Rinehart, an Australian mining billionaire; the late broadcaster John Laws; or perhaps the ABC’s respected finance commentator Alan Kohler. They then produce a deepfake video where that fake celebrity seems to endorse a revolutionary investment opportunity behind the scenes, a supposedly secret approach to making wealth. When you click the ad, you are not taken to the real site, but to a fake news article designed to look like it comes from the ABC or another credible outlet. And ‘proof’ is built even more: there, next to the story, appear to be official quotes or images of people sharing the same story. Once you are convinced, you are sent to a professional-looking investment platform offering cryptocurrency buying, foreign stocks, or gold investments—even if “investors” get a small withdrawal or profit to boost their trust and help them feel that the whole operation is legitimate. Yet once the scam is done and one provides their personal details and payment, the cycle begins: frequent phone calls, urgent extra “opportunities,” and eventually the money stops coming. Kohler, an experienced journalist, knows this problem well. He told ASIC that it took a lifetime to build trust, and it can be so easily lost in a minute. NAB’s former chief economist, Alan Oster, also receives countless messages with concerned viewers who think he just endorse the scheme. At worst, he got ten messages a week, and he felt terrible because people might actually lose money and blame him. He said it’s appalling but there is nothing they can do because the scammers are operating offshore.
Para 3:
The financial pain is staggering. According to the latest report from the National Anti-Scam Centre, Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams in 2025—almost an increase of 8 percent on the previous year. Investment scams are the largest piece of the pie, around 38 percent of total losses, representing $837.7 million. Payment theft—fraud, such as phishing or emails changing bank details—cost Australians nearly $167 million. These are not little amounts; they are victims’ emergency savings, proudness, or money set for their family’s future. ASIC says that scammers are fast and responsive to the news cycle. They pivot to whatever is topical: interest rates, cryptocurrency, inflation, or a financial crisis. If a film or company captures the attention of the world, scammers use that hook to catch people. Even the ABC itself has been targeted. Scammers have created fake articles looking like ABC News, using clickbait headlines about “secret wealth solutions” and quoting fake experts, and the public broadcaster has had to publish its warning pages to steer readers away from the schemes. Increasingly, the scams are professional and polished: familiar greenwashing, authentic-looking testimonials, and AI-generated video come together in a convincing illusion. For ordinary people, that means even being careful might not be enough. You can search for the legitimacy of an investment, watch more, and still not be able to tell if it is real or fake. The report itself cautions that even checking the Australian Financial Services Licence may not be enough—scammers can also impersonate the licence details of genuine businesses. Fragile authenticity, AI, and a constant news cycle are making fraudulent schemes harder to detect.
Para 4:
ASIC’s chair, Sarah Court, is unequivocal: social media companies cannot be trusted to police this crisis on their own. In an interview, she said: “We think that the social media companies have a lot to answer for in relation to scams.” She pointed out that under the new scam protection framework, social media platforms will be brought into the broader ecosystem of management, with new incentives to try to stop the deceit at its origin. ASIC is also taking direct action; it disrupts fraudulent websites, removes them when they appear, and tries to prevent them from appearing again. In the last three years alone, the regulator has taken down more than 33,000 scams websites, social media accounts, and phishing platforms. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, defended itself in response to the report, saying that the increase in removals reflects stronger detection and enforcement, not necessarily more scams. The platform added that it had rolled out facial recognition technology to identify impersonation scam ads, and that user reports of such ads had decreased by 22 percent. However, Meta’s statement did not answer a key question: why do these fraudulent ads keep getting approved in the first place? And how much money has the company made from them. The very fact that repeated removals are needed—and still continue—highlight just how much more needs to be done. According to Court, with AI, the content is increasingly polished, using familiar branding and convincing user reviews, so that users will look at it very carefully, take their time, and still not be able to ascertain if it is fake or not. That is a new kind of digital reality, and it has serious implications for public trust in media, institutions, and real people.
Para 5:
The human side of this story cannot be overstated. Alan Kohler, surprised about the situation, suspects it is “only going to get worse” without aggressive government involvement. He said that when he contacts Meta, they take accounts down, but the same fake accounts return within days. “It was like whack a mole … it just kept coming back,” he says. He believes the only practical solution is government regulation—fines, strict enforcement, and something more urgent than what exists now. He calls it: “The government has to really come down hard on them … this is a potentially emergency in the making here.” Alan Oster similarly felt distressed and powerless when the scams were running on real social networks. He says he felt “Oh, this, this is terrible. How can I stop it? Because people will actually lose money and blame me.” The emotional toll on the impersonated celebrities is heavy because they never have any control. They are ordinary human beings, not endowed with the ability to stop scammers. Their names and faces are being used to damage some of the most vulnerable people in the community. And it’s not just famous: anything more from the mistakes. Even the cyber security expert can be targeted, as ABC business reporter David Taylor himself was. He described how easy it is to get hacked on X, how it only takes a second, and that moment can lead to a permanent loss. These people do not know how to stop the algorithms from spreading zombies. They are trapped in a digital blur where trust is a weapon, and the victim is just one click away from losing everything.
Para 6:
What can you do to protect yourself? ASIC’s advice is simple but increasingly scarcer: Always stop to check before you invest. Search for the project’s name and the official website directly of the regulators. Check whether the investment company holds an Australia financial services license, but then go one step further and even call the license holder through an official number to verify. If something seems too good to be true, it usually will. Don’t use the contact details from the ad—search for the official phone number or website yourself. And above all, take the time. Scammers create urgency and fear in their victims; they push you to act quickly before thinking and before they get something more. Real investments generally don’t need that same pressure. This is a human problem, highly AI-equipped, and the most human defense is to trust your instincts, not only your eyes. As artificial intelligence improves, it will become even harder to recognize deepfake hyper-realistic identities. That does not mean you should be unable to protect yourself; it means the protective layers need to be more robust. That includes social media companies to remove fake content before it spreads, the government to bring new laws and fines, and the public to remain skeptical. No one cares about safety as much as the person with their own purse does. The report is a reminder that behind every scam is a person trying to manipulate another person’s hope. While the battle continues, the best way to win is to slow down, double-check, and be prepared for anything. Investment is not going to happen—and a quote without official documentation is worth nothing. If we together can combine, we can reduce the most harmful and constant wave of this digital deception. Not by magic, but by careful attention and the collective refusal to believe a fake promise from the inside.