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Incident 1287: Purported Deepfake-Based Facebook Impersonation Reportedly Targets Daughter of Scot in Coma

Description: Scammers allegedly created a fake Facebook profile impersonating a Scottish woman, Teigan McMahon, raising funds for her father, who was reportedly in a coma in Turkey. The account reportedly reused her photos and posts and was described as using purportedly AI-generated or deepfake-style content to solicit donations. The impersonation forced the family to pause their legitimate fundraiser while the fake profile remained online.

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Alleged: Deepfake technology developers and Image generation technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Scammers, which harmed Teigan McMahon , Peter McMahon and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Facebook , Image generation technology and Deepfake technology

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1287
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-11-26
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Applied Taxonomies
MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

4.3. Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Malicious Actors & Misuse

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

Human

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Intentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident OccurrenceDaughter of Scot in coma in Turkey left sickened by deep fake scammers asking for cash
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Daughter of Scot in coma in Turkey left sickened by deep fake scammers asking for cash

Daughter of Scot in coma in Turkey left sickened by deep fake scammers asking for cash

dailyrecord.co.uk

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Daughter of Scot in coma in Turkey left sickened by deep fake scammers asking for cash
dailyrecord.co.uk · 2025

The daughter of a Scot in a coma in Turkey has been left sickened by deep-fake scammers asking for cash.Teigan McMahon, from Glasgow, made a desperate appeal for help last week when her dad Peter suffered a heart attack on holiday.

Her fami…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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