Celebrity Impersonation
Celebrity scams are big on the fraud scene. Many people can’t understand how anyone might get exploited through one of these because the person is a public figure, but as usual, the criminals have a clever way to get a connection started. These are not to be confused with Impersonation scams, where criminals pretend to be someone you know or an organisation (such as a bank).
These frauds generally start in the comments section of the real celebrity accounts on social media. Fraudsters will either clone another account so that it shares the same pictures and bios to look identical to the celebrity they are using, or they will create an account claiming to be the private/personal account of that celebrity. These accounts will then respond to the comments made by fans, expressing gratitude for the lovely comments or loyalty. This can look very real. Sometime soon after this, the fraudster will either direct message or ask the victim to direct message them.
Another way fraudsters make a connection, is by creating an account (or using a hacked account which can look more genuine) to declare that they are management or part of the professional team for that celebrity. Again, they will look for comments on that celebrities profile and then either respond to the comment, or direct message the victim asking for feedback or declaring that the celebrity has chosen a select few fans from the comments to offer a special meet and greet session for example. There are also occasions, where they will message as a family member.
Sometimes, the criminals can build a very convincing account which can stand alone and have fans come to follow. With paid for verification, hacking accounts with verified ticks has never been easier. Anyone can buy followers (and they do in their thousands) to make accounts appear to be genuine. Live streams can be created with saved videos of the real celebrity. Unsuspecting victims will comment and message as they would on any celebrity profile.
Once the victim has been contacted, the criminals will continue the fraud with their chosen format, depending on what the intent of the connection is. It is not always money.
One of the formats will have the criminals offer certain packages where the victim can have contact with the celebrity. Much the same as meet and greet packages (which are real), for a fee, they will send VIP passes and membership cards to allow messaging to take place, and future meet ups. The management or family member will at some point, exchange the number or email of the celebrity for them to chat. The criminals will then keep the chat going, building the connection as the celebrity. Voice cloning and deep fake videos can be used to build trust as the criminals move the connection to being romantic. The fraud can then continue much like other romance fraud. If the real celebrity is married, the criminals may suggest that a divorce is being kept quiet due to bad publicity. They will also tell the victims that management control the celebrity profiles.
Real ‘meet and greets’ are organised through the venue where the celebrity is performing, if they have chosen to do so. The only contact would be through customer services at that venue. The celebrity nor their management would arrange this through social media or in private messages and chat apps.Â
Another format is for the fraudster to not ask for money at all. This will be because the intent of the connection was for other reasons. Large scale criminals need somewhere to launder the money they steal. Victims can be helpful in these scenarios, as unwitting money mules. Following a similar pattern as above, the criminals at some point when trust is secured, may ask the victim if they might open a bank account for the purposes of, for example to accept donations for a new charity campaign. The victim will be told they can be trusted, that maybe the celebrity is having issues with the current management who they don’t feel they can trust now, to do the right thing. It can all seem very feasible as the story will have been cultivated over some time.
There will be many versions of the above scenarios. They will have all the tricks and tools to edit photos and create things to make what they say, appear real.