Description: A Northeast Ohio man ("Ray," pseudonym) was allegedly lured by a social-media deepfake video impersonating Elton John into a "push button" scam promising easy income from an online store. Ray reportedly said he was directed by purported "representatives" to open accounts and credit cards, after which charges accumulated to about $20,000. He later reported one card credited $9,400.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers and Unknown voice cloning technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers and Unknown scammers impersonating Elton John, which harmed Northeast Ohio man "Ray" , General public , Elton John , Elton John fans and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology , Unknown voice cloning technology and Social media platforms
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1384
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2025-10-23
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — At a time when so many people are living paycheck-to-paycheck and the cost of living remains high, I learned we're all more vulnerable to certain schemes now than ever before.
It's no secret that everyone is trying to stre…
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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