Description: Beginning around October 2025, a campaign reportedly used AI-generated videos and cloned voices of well-known public figures and celebrities such as Bill Gates, Sanjay Gupta, Anderson Cooper, Bruce Willis, and others to market honey-based supplements as treatments for Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Consumers reportedly said modest purchases sometimes led to continuing charges or unwanted shipments, while cancellation and refund requests were difficult to resolve.
Editor Notes: Timeline note: The incident ID date is 10/25/2025, based on the earliest identified BBB Scam Tracker complaint documenting reported consumer loss. Additional complaints and later reporting showed that the deepfake supplement campaign continued into 2026. The incident ID was created on 07/02/2026.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Deepfake technology developers , Synthetic media generation technology developers , Synthetic video generation technology developers and Synthetic audio generation technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Scammers , Scammers impersonating Bill Gates , Scammers impersonating Sanjay Gupta , Scammers impersonating Anderson Cooper , Scammers impersonating Bruce Willis and Deepfake creators, which harmed Consumers , People seeking medical advice , Victims of deepfake-enabled fraud , Scam victims , People with Alzheimer's disease and their families and caregivers , People with dementia and their families and caregivers , Bill Gates , Anderson Cooper , Sanjay Gupta , Bruce Willis , Social media users , Facebook users , celebrities and public figures.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Deepfake technology , Synthetic media generation technology , Synthetic video generation technology , Synthetic audio generation technology , Facebook and Social media platforms
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1564
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-10-25
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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This content is based on victim and potential victim accounts. Government agencies and legitimate business names and phone numbers are often used by scam artists to take advantage of people.
Description
The scam showed Anderson Cooper talki…
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A social media scam is using deepfakes of celebrities to promote products they falsely claim could cure Alzheimer's disease and dementia, the Better Business Bureau warned. Some victims they even found reoccurring charges after buying the h…
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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