AI-generated videos of Taylor Swift’s likeness promoting a fraudulent Le Creuset cookware giveaway have tricked several fans into purchasing it.
The deepfake videos feature what appears to be Swift doing a promotional pitch, per a CBS News report. The videos have been circulating on Facebook.
“Hey y’all, it’s Taylor Swift here,” the Swift replica can be heard saying in the video. “Due to a packaging error, we can’t sell 3,000 Le Creuset cookware sets. So I’m giving them away to my loyal fans for free.”
Viewers, whom the AI image addressed as “Swifties,” were then instructed by the faux Swift to click a button below the ad to complete a survey. The ad conveys a sense of urgency, saying that “supplies are running out.”
People who clicked on the ad were sent to websites that appeared to be legitimate, like The Food Network. They were next shown fake news coverage of the product and testimonials by fake customers, per The New York Times.
Scam victims were asked to pay a “small shipping fee of $9.96” for the cookware. They didn’t realize that paying that fee would lead to a hidden recurring charge and would not result in getting the pricey cookware at all.
A Facebook account called “The most profitable shares” promoted the deepfake video, though CBS News noted that it’s unclear who is behind it.
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Fans were likely duped in part because Swift is known for her love of Le Creuset. In 2020, the brand shared an image on Facebook from the Grammy Award winner’s Netflix documentary “Miss Americana.” The post showed her in the kitchen using the brand’s round Dutch oven.
This is not the first deepfake ad scam featuring a celebrity to make the rounds on social media. In October, Tom Hanks warned fans that he was not promoting a dental plan and that any ads featuring his likeness were fake, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
“BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” Hanks shared on Instagram at the time.
CBS Mornings host Gayle King’s AI likeness was also associated with a scam. King denied any connection to the fake weight loss-related video from a company called Artipet.