Please Stop Sending 'Jennifer Aniston' Money To Pay Her Apple Bill
The scammer used AI photos, video and even audio to pretend to be Aniston.
A middle-aged man is crying foul after being scammed into sending money "to Jennifer Aniston" to help the actress pay off her Apple bill.
It turns out that the money Paul Davis was sending to "Jennifer A," was in fact not being received by the Friends actress. Shocking, I know.
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‘JENNIFER A' NEEDED HELP PAYING OFF HER APPLE SUBSCRIPTION
The 43-year-old Brit tells The Sun that he believes he's the latest victim of AI, even claiming that he had (now believed to be AI deepfakes) photos of the actress showing him her driver's license and even holding up a sign reading "I love you." In other photos, Davis said she was blowing kisses to him and even sent audio clips that resembled the famed actress.
"I’ve had fake videos from Jennifer Aniston saying she loves me and asking for about $270," Davis told the newspaper outlet.
"Are you there, my love?" the scammer asked him during one exchange, "My [Apple] subscription is about to expire." Davis said that he's also received harassing messages from other fake, AI-generated accounts that have impersonated Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
STOP SENDING CELEBS MONEY
Davis adds that he went public with the embarrassing admission as a warning to others that may fall victim to similar scams, which have been rising in recent months due to the technological advancements of Artificial Intelligence. As I accurately predicted in 2023, the rise of AI deepfakes was going to eventually have a significant impact on a massive scale. We saw this from time to time during last year's Presidential election, and it's only going to get worse and more frequent.
In May, ESPN's Erin Dolan released a statement on Instagram informing her followers that she is sick and tired of bots creating fake accounts pretending to be her. "I got fake accounts [pretending to be me] playing Scrabble now! This is getting insane" Dolan wrote.
One thing will always remain true: a celebrity or athlete will never, ever randomly message you on any of your social media accounts and ask for money, gift cards, your mom's lasagna recipe, or anything, ever.