A consultant for Brad Pitt has warned followers to be cautious of impersonation scams after a French lady misplaced her life financial savings to fraudsters posing because the Hollywood star.
The 53-year-old sufferer advised France’s TF1 channel she believed she was in a romantic relationship with Pitt, main her to divorce her husband and switch 830,000 euros ($850,000) to the scammers.
“It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” a spokesperson for the “Fight Club” actor advised U.S. outlet Entertainment Weekly.
The spokesperson added it was “an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence,” reminiscent of Pitt.
The scammers used faux social media and WhatsApp accounts, in addition to AI image-creating know-how to ship the girl what gave the impression to be selfies and messages from the Oscar-winning actor.
To extract cash, they pretended that the 61-year-old actor wanted cash to pay for kidney remedy, together with his financial institution accounts supposedly frozen due to divorce proceedings together with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
The lady, named solely as Anne, spent a yr and a half believing she was speaking with Pitt and solely realized she had been scammed when news emerged of his real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon.
She was subjected to on-line harassment after her interview went viral on Monday — main TF1 to withdraw it “for the protection of victims.”
Some on-line critics accused TF1 of failing to guard a weak particular person who won’t have been unaware of the implications of going public.
Romantic scams have been a characteristic of the web because the creation of e-mail, however specialists say synthetic intelligence has elevated the danger of identification theft, hoaxes and fraud on-line.
Spanish police arrested 5 folks in September accused of scamming two girls out of €325,000 ($335,000) by posing as Pitt through on-line and WhatsApp messages.
The suspects made contact with the ladies on an web web page for his followers, authorities stated.
Pitt made headlines final month when he and actress Angelina Jolie signed off on a divorce settlement, marking a turning level within the eight-year authorized saga.
Once Hollywood’s highest-profile couple, Jolie filed to dissolve their marriage in September 2016.
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