Getting scammed online is something many Aussies try to avoid, but one Shark Tank judge deliberately got scammed 100 times.
Sabri Suby, 38, is like any other Australian who finds herself targeted by telemarketers and scam advertisements on social media.
And while many unknowingly fall for this scam, Mr. Suby wanted to find out what this scam was like and where they came from.
‘It’s getting out of hand. I have a bit of fun with them (usually), but this time I decided to just go all out and just see what rabbit holes on the internet would lead me down, and what lengths people go to to scam people,” he said.
“And I think with everything that’s going on with AI and with Robo calling and all that stuff is going to become more and more common. So because I am a man of the people, I have set myself this task.”
Shark Tank Australia judge and marketing expert Sabri Suby was scammed a hundred times to investigate how these scam ads work and still fool people. Image: supplied
According to the digital marketing mogul, it took very little effort to find them thanks to social media algorithms: they found him.
“The algorithms are very smart about your stuff once you click on it and you click on one scam. And that’s it. You fall into a ferret hole of constant endless ads for all kinds of scams, whether it’s organic content or the ads themselves,” he said.
“I just picked the weirdest, wildest, craziest things I could find and I thought, let’s try that.”
One of the products he came across that he classified as a “scrammy product sold in a scrammy manner” was the Pure Himalayan Shilajit resin.
“It’s this black tar substance that comes from the Himalayas and from India and basically says it has all the essential minerals,” Mr Suby said.
“And they market it in a way where it will double your testosterone, it will increase your pencil size and it will do all these outrageous things for you.
“Crazy AI ads for this one. The ad begins: “This is what would happen to you if you ate nothing but Shilajit for seven days.” And they just continue to make completely false claims, baseless claims.”
But the worst scam he encountered was one that used AI spoofs of popularity celebrities and influencers to provide fake recommendations.
“You have one that looks like AI deep counterfeits of Mr Beast selling iPhones for a dollar. And because he has such a young audience, otherwise there will be some kind of sweepstakes app where it’s a betting app, they’re going to use Mr Beast to promote it,” Mr Suby said.
“As soon as you put in your credit card, they’re going to break that thing and take your money out, and that’s just a complete scam.”
These two ads show people bragging about making money with AI-generated scams
It’s not just the image of the popular American YouTuber whose image has been used in this scam, as Mr Suby said he came across images featuring Elon Musk, Scarlett Johansson, Joe Rogan and even Robert Irwin.
‘They take someone who is a credible figure and has a relationship with their audience. And they just completely steal their identity,” he said.
As well as using smarter tactics with AI, Sahra O’Doherty, president of the Australian Association of Psychologists, says scams target people’s emotions to deceive them.
“When we talk about scam products, or even legitimate products that are sold in a rather sleazy marketing way, it’s often because it can feed our sense of insecurity or fear about ourselves,” she said.
“So when we buy something that we probably don’t need, but it’s sold to us as if we need it. It usually plays on our insecurities that we are not good enough, or that we do not fit into a certain image that we wanted to step into. And it’s often sold as a quick fix.”
Ms O’Doherty advises people to do their research before buying anything they see on social media.
Psychologist Sahra O’Doherty said scammers are taking advantage of people’s insecurities
“We have access to some form of research at our fingertips. We can go through the process of not just trusting the ads or the influencers. We can do a little Google searching, we can read reviews, if we have a hunch that it might be too good to be true,” she said.
“We can search for that product with the word scam next to it and see if there are more people reporting something similar.”
And while it may be easy to blame social media companies for the presence of these scams, Mr Sudy said it is up to people to use their common sense.
“You can’t put guardrails on the Internet,” he said.
“You have to operate intelligently, be very skeptical of everything you see online, and think critically.”
Because children have such easy access to the internet, Mr Sudy also recommends that parents talk to them about scams to prepare them for the future.
“I have three daughters, they are all under seven years old and I am already teaching them about it,” he said.
“If we’re in the car and I get a robo-call, or I pick it up in the car and I’ll show my daughter firsthand what these people are going to try. And then they’ll ask me a million questions about it.
“It’s that critical thinking that you have to arm them with that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.”