AI-made celebrity videos are pushing people into fake investment apps, and the money vanishes when they try to withdraw it. Here is how the trap works.
A video of a famous person praising an investment may not be real. Australia's securities regulator, ASIC, says scams using deepfake celebrity images to endorse investment schemes rose 25 percent in 2025. A deepfake is a video or image made with AI to look and sound like a real person.
Fake investments cost Australians close to a billion dollars each year. ASIC coordinated the removal of almost 12,000 phishing and investment scam websites in 2025, yet people are still losing money. Professor Dali Kaafar of the Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub says AI lets scammers make believable content cheaply, in hundreds of languages.
It starts with a hook, such as a deepfake clip of a celebrity or business figure. Once you sign up through a website or social media ad, the scammers try to move you into a private messaging group or a slick investment app.
The app shows a big account balance, charts of profits and a working-looking withdrawal button. All of it is fake. You may get a personal account manager and go through an onboarding process that copies real identity checks. At first, only small deposits are requested. As the fake profits grow, you are nudged to put in more.
The catch comes when you try to withdraw. Suddenly there are demands for taxes, verification fees or account-unlocking fees. Soon after, the platform goes dark and the money is gone.
Anyone who sees investment ads on social media or websites could be targeted. Customers of banks such as CommBank face an extra risk, because the bank's name and its coming NetBank upgrade can be used in fake links, calls and texts. CommBank says it will never ask for the following:
So any message asking for those things is not from the bank.
The alert box above lists the steps. The short version: treat celebrity-backed offers with suspicion, be wary of private groups and personal account managers, and stop paying if fees appear when you try to withdraw.
The material does not say whether these scams will keep growing, only that they grew in 2025 and that takedowns have not stopped the losses. Tools such as NameCheck, which checks available account details before a first-time payment, can help.
Talking helps too. Research commissioned by CommBank found more than 90 percent of Australians think talking about scams with family and friends matters, but only 8 percent feel comfortable doing it. Sharing a near miss, without shame, is one of the best defenses.
A famous face on an investment offer proves nothing, so stop paying the moment fees appear and talk openly with family about scams you see.
The Attala County Sheriff's Office in Mississippi says scam calls are reaching residents, and a call that sounds official may not be.
Read more: Mississippi sheriff warns residents about scam phone callsScammers are posing as Texas sheriff's officers and claiming you missed jury duty. Caller ID can show a real police number even when the call is fake.
Read more: Fake jury duty calls spoof a real Texas sheriff's phone numberFake PayPal emails and texts, some posing as a security report, try to get you to tap a link and type your login. Checking your account directly avoids the trap.
Read more: Got a fake PayPal message? Skip its link and check your account yourself
