Scammers are leveraging AI tools and social media to impersonate celebrities like Keanu Reeves and Kevin Costner, tricking vulnerable fans into sending large sums of money. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter’s Rebecca Keegan, one victim, 73-year-old Margaret, left her husband and spent over $100,000 in bitcoin believing she was…

SEEING the message pop up on her Instagram account, Lisa Nock’s heart fluttered. It had only been a month since they began talking but there they were – three little words she had never expected to see, “I love you”. 8 Lisa Nock lost £11,000 of her disability benefits in…

Look, we all want to believe that Channing Tatum slid into our DMs because he just knows we’re his soulmate. Or Taylor Swift saw you on Facebook and was like, “Check out this stud! I better reach out!” Well, I hate to break it to you, but if a celebrity suddenly wants to…

The perfect emotional storm. “For a lot of people who are vulnerable to falling for these romance scams, they have a romanticised idea of love or relationships. So they believe in true love. They believe in fairy tales more than the average person,” Dober explained. “They also might have more…

The Federal Trade Commission of the US reported that in 2023, consumers lost $1.14 billion to romance scams. This is a substantial increase from $547 million in losses in 2021, and $304 million in 2020. What exactly are romance scams and why are people susceptible to them? Scammers pose as…

Imagine getting a message from your favorite celebrity, but it’s a clever scammer. The details behind this scheme are eye-opening. Did you have Taylor Swift, Kid Rock, or Snoop Dogg reach out to you on Social Media? Here’s what you need to know. Here we go again.  I’m honestly shocked that…

Besides being a household name, Jennifer Aniston is also a household image for scammers. For more than a decade, cybercriminals have exploited her identity in scams ranging from spam and phishing emails to fake endorsements. Now they’re abusing her image in AI-generated romance fraud. According to a Bitdefender study from…

In November, Margaret climbed into her Toyota Camry, left her husband of 10 years at their comfortable brick home in the rural South and drove an hour to a hotel where — she was sure — Kevin Costner was coming to meet her.  By this point, Margaret, 73, had spent…