Heartless scammers have shared false social media articles featuring Sophie Monk and Robert Irwin in a bid to fleece Australians of their hard-earned cash.
The scam first began appearing online on Monday with posts on X showing mock news.com.au previews with headlines like: ‘A big scandal. Sophie Monk: I had to tell people the truth, even if it means risking my career’.
The when clicked led to articles designed to look genuine, though hosted under a completely different URL.
The articles claimed British-Australian singer and personality Ms Monk had revealed a lucrative investment strategy on the Today show with Karl Stefanovic.
The article claimed the top brass of ‘Central Bank of Australia’ demanded the segment didn’t go to air, fearing people would ditch their savings accounts if they knew about ‘Ms Monk’s’ strategy.
The article featured several doctored pictures of Ms Monk explaining the system to Mr Stefanovic and a fake interview transcript.
Readers were told Ms Monk had provided a link to an investment platform – ‘Intermediate FastX’ – and were encouraged to leave their cash with the site.
Another scam seen on X on Monday involved false articles about Mr Irwin which deceitfully claimed he was being sued by banks for divulging his own investment strategies.
Images of Ms Monk and Mr Irwin were used to lure viewers into reading the fraudulent articles
Fake news articles featuring Sophie Monk and Robert Irwin were shared to Twitter apparently by bots encouraging Australians to deposit money to fraudsters
Phoney accounts posted the adverts, with many appearing to be genuine but some obviously fake including one with a handle and name which didn’t match, accompanied by a profile picture of tennis star Roger Federer.
Banks have increasingly pressured the government to toughen penalties for social media companies allowing fake news to circulate on their platforms.
The ACCC believed Australians lost about $35million to investment scams between April and June last year.
Victims who are left out of pocket have very few avenues to chase their cash with scammers usually being overseas and using cryptocurrency to hide their ill-gotten gains.
Thankfully, on Monday, many X users were able to tell the information was entirely untrue.
The ACCC’s ScamWatch last year revealed there had been a rise in the use of celebrities and public figures in fake news and ‘deepfake’ videos to promote fraudulent investment platforms.
One imitation news.com.au article featured the headline ‘a big scandal’ in attempts to take readers to another site
Another article falsely claimed Robert Irwin had been detained for sharing the ‘details’ of another investment strategy
Such investment scams have been some of the most profitable for criminals.
The Labor government brought forward legislation to penalise platforms, banks, and telecommunications companies that don’t reasonably work to expel scams operating in their businesses.
The legislation is currently in the committee stage but could see fines reaching $50million for non-compliant actors.
Experts have said the number of ‘bots’ or automated accounts on X has worsened since Elon Musk bought the platform, despite his pledge to rid the site of them before the acquisition was completed.
Many so-called bots on X promote links to suspect investment platforms or dangerous crypto-currency ‘opportunities’.
