A public warning about new look online investment scams has been issued today, after a surge in complaints from New Zealanders tricked into clicking on fake advertisements featuring 'celebrity endorsements' – some of which use deepfake videos of New Zealand political figures.
Read the latest FMA warning here
This scam uses fake news stories, spread through multiple websites and advertisements, with the names of investment schemes and websites used to promote the scam changing frequently.
Some recent examples include images of the New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, with accompanying text falsely claiming, 'pensions payments will be cancelled'. This is not true and designed to alarm readers into clicking on links included with the content.
FMA Director responsible for Scam Prevention and Co-ordination Peter Taylor said the recent imposter digital content seen by the FMA was very sophisticated.
"It can be very difficult to detect that some of these news stories are fake, they have the exact look and feel of legitimate online news content," he said. "But they are actually paid advertisements, used to alarm people, gain attention and get them to click on a link for more information."
Fake news stories are often created and used by scammers as a way of giving their trading platforms a mirage of legitimacy.
Some of the victims have only lost relatively small amounts of money – but they have given personal details to scammers, and now risk being contacted again in what are known as 'recovery scams'.
Many of the people caught up in the scams think they have made money trading through online platforms, but can't get any money out without being asked to pay fees and phony 'taxes'.
"These latest scams are pretending to be about the New Zealand superannuation regime, scaring people into thinking they may be losing retirement income," says Peter Taylor. "The use of political leaders faces and deepfake video to boost these claims is a particularly worrying development."
The FMA recently spoke to a New Zealand woman who had clicked on one of these fake news stories, and found herself caught in the net of an online investment scam.
Read her full story here
"A Facebook ad caught my eye," she said. "It had an item about Jacinda Ardern and her husband Clarke Gayford, it had a byline and I think a screenshot I wonder what's that all about? And then clicked on it to read it."
She followed the link, which took her to an advertisement for a crypto trading site. She checked out the company and its website – it seemed to represent a legitimate broking firm. She joined up, depositing $420 via her credit card.
"I read through the article – maybe I skimmed it all too quickly, I didn't really register the figures being quoted, there was no real context for them – but it did talk about the returns and how they'd made money - there were many red flags now that I think about it, but hindsight is a wonderful thing!"
