Facebook scammers are always trying to find innovative ways to separate users from their hard-earned money, and deepfake videos are at the cutting edge. These altered clips are frequently used by bad actors to impersonate celebrities and politicians in order to trick users into downloading malware, providing their financial information, and more. One of these prominent deepfake victims, Australian businessman Dick Smith, is warning users to “never ever” buy anything from a Facebook ad due to the risks of falling victim to these scams.

The fake video of Smith, which was designed to look like a news program interview with him, promises users that they can join an investment plan that will net them thousands of dollars every week. Of course, no such program exists, but the video was convincing enough that even Smith himself had to do a double take to make sure it wasn’t him.

“It is totally fraudulent. The scammers have made up the voice and lip synced to make it look genuine,” Smith said. “Do not open it and do not send any money. It is a scam.” He also went on to say that people should “simply never ever buy anything from any advertiser on Facebook or Instagram” and that Facebook’s “greed is so great they run ads from criminal organizations.”

As users, it’s important to remember that if a Facebook ad or video is promising something that seems too good to be true, it probably is. However, Smith is also correct that Facebook needs to do a much better job stopping these fraudulent ads from being posted in the first place.

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