Scammers fake Gina Rinehart and Richard Branson in dodgy get-rich-quick videos

^{By Frank Algra-Maschio}

Scammers are turning to an old trick on Facebook to dupe users into handing over $350, supposedly for an investment that will earn them thousands of dollars per week on financial trading or cryptocurrency schemes.

Several different videos on Facebook have been dubbed with artificially generated audio to give the impression that business billionaires such as Richard Branson and Gina Rinehart, Channel Nine television presenters, and members of the public endorse the advertised schemes.

Together, two of the videos have been viewed over 300,000 times on Facebook.

Both the Commonwealth Bank and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch have identified videos of this type as being scams.

RMIT FactLab has also previously fact-checked similar videos and found them to be a scam.

The videos on Facebook all use a similar format that includes one or more of the following features: a Commonwealth Bank logo; clips from a Channel Nine television segment; the endorsement of a celebrity; and the testimonial of a member of the public who has used the scheme.

They aim to mislead viewers by presenting segments of authentic footage that have been dubbed with artificially generated audio.

For example, the video with the most views (239k) begins with a doctored clip of Nine News presenter Peter Hitchener. The original audio has been replaced with a robotic sounding voice that states: “A new source of passive income has been released for Australian Citizens. By investing in quantum financial instruments, people get over $5000 per week, and it's not a joke.”

But the voice attributed to Mr Hitchener sounds artificially generated and his lips appear to have been doctored so that they move in sync with the fake audio. 

The Facebook video then cuts to a clip of A Current Affair reporter Martin King standing in front of Commonwealth Bank ATMs. 

While this is an authentic clip of Mr King, taken from an April 2023 A Current Affair segment about a couple who had received money in their bank account from a loan that neither had applied for, is out of context and designed to mislead viewers. 

The video then cuts away to a stock footage montage while artificially generated audio, meant to imitate Mr King, provides a voiceover that describes how the investment platform “created by Sir Richard Branson guarantees all Australian citizens a passive income of over $10,000 per week”. 

Artificially generated audio is used again to replace Mr Branson’s real voice in a clip from a recent interview with Lauren Golman on A Current Affair. The fake audio does not sync with his lip movements.

In the authentic interview broadcast on 23 May 2022, Mr Branson is describing the new cruise ship venture of his company Virgin Group. The fake audio over the same clip has Mr Branson explaining how “passive income” can be earned through a “quantum platform”.

Another scam videos employs similar techniques by presenting false audio of Channel Nine presenter Allison Langdon and mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, merging the fake audio with authentic clips from Channel Nine television segments.

The Commonwealth Bank logo is also employed by the accounts spreading the scam, for example, by using the logo as one of the accounts profile pictures.

The videos commonly feature the doctored audio of interviews with members of the public, falsely portraying them as endorsing the scam. All the videos ask Facebook users to visit a link, provide personal details, and wait to be contacted by phone.

The Commonwealth Bank warned customers of similar scams using doctored videos on May 26 on its “Latest scams, fraud and security alerts” webpage.

Under the heading  “Investment scam alert: Fictitious website impersonating CommBank”, the bank explains how the scam works:

“The advert claims to use AI to generate passive income from an initially modest investment and deliver large returns. The scammers often claim you can make between $1000 - $5000 a day from an investment of $350.”

“The scammers will create a fake trading profile that looks legitimate, and will ask you to begin with a small investment. They'll show you fake returns on your investment, then ask for more money, often through cryptocurrency.”

This entry, which notes that the videos “misuse well-known news brands” and artificially generated clips to deceive users, is illustrated with a still image from one of the video scams showing Peter Hitchener.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch have also noted that “investment scams” fake celebrity endorsements in doctored news clips from reputable news companies.

Australian news companies and well-known Australian figures have frequently featured in a range of scam videos and advertisements on social media. 

In November last year, the Commonwealth Bank told FactLab that similar videos were scams, and Channel Nine confirmed the similar videos were “fake”. 

AAP FactCheck and AFP Fact Check also found similar videos spreading on social media last year to be false. 

Further information on how to identify these investment scams can be found on the Commonwealth Bank or ACCC Scamwatch websites. 

According to the ACCC, Australians reported losing $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, which is an 80% increase on 2021 figures.