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Low reported severity Media Coverage

Australian scam victim says her face was used in AI video adverts on Facebook for a fake fund-recovery scam, News Corp report says

A Chinese-Australian woman who lost A$49,000 to a scam in 2023 and later spoke to Australian media about it found earlier in 2026 that her face had been taken and used in AI scam videos, according to a News Corp Australia investigation compiled in Chinese by the community news site Yeeyi on 28 October 2026. The Facebook video adverts, which used footage from her earlier media interviews, claimed that Interpol could help investment-scam victims recover their money. The security firm Infoblox, which investigated the adverts, traced an operator who used fake news pages to run polished AI video adverts that sent users to phishing sites promising to recover losses. The woman says the advert disgusted her, that the trauma of the original scam has not healed and that she fears other victims will be drawn in. Meta removed the adverts using her image after Hong Kong media reported them, but Infoblox says similar scam content remains widespread. The report does not name the AI tool or say how many people were deceived.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
28 October 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Psychological DistressReputational Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Finance · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source
6 claims: 6 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: AI-generated video adverts on Facebook, built from footage of the woman's earlier media interviews, promoting a fake fund-recovery service; the tool and maker are not identified

What Happened

What happened. According to a News Corp Australia investigation into AI scams, compiled and translated into Chinese by the Australian community news site Yeeyi, a Chinese-Australian woman who lost A$49,000 to a scam in 2023 discovered earlier in 2026 that her face had been taken and used by scammers to make AI scam videos. A video circulating on Facebook claimed that Interpol could help investment-scam victims recover their money. The footage of the woman in it came from interviews she had given to Australian media. The vice-chair of the Scam Victims Alliance was the first to recognise her in the Facebook AI advert, according to the report.

How AI was involved. The report describes the adverts as AI videos. The security firm Infoblox investigated the batch of adverts and traced an operator who used fake news pages to run polished AI video adverts and then directed users to phishing sites claiming to help victims recover their losses. The report does not name the tool, and the technical basis for the AI attribution is not stated beyond the Infoblox investigation.

Her account. The woman says the advert disgusted her and that she worries others will be deceived. The report says the psychological trauma of the original scam had not healed and that she found the use of her image in such a scam hard to accept. She told News Corp she was shocked that scammers used her own experience to lure more people.

What followed. Meta removed the adverts using her image after Hong Kong media reported them, according to the report; Infoblox says similar scam content remains widespread. The report does not say whether anyone was deceived by the adverts that used her face.

Reported harm

According to a News Corp report relayed by Yeeyi, a scam victim found her face used in AI video adverts for a fake fund-recovery scam; she says it disgusted her and she fears other victims will be deceived.

How Harm Occurred

Scammers used footage from a scam victim's media interviews to make AI video adverts on Facebook for a fake fund-recovery service, so that she appeared to endorse a scam aimed at other victims.

Outcome

Ongoing

According to the report, Meta removed the adverts that used her image after Hong Kong media reported them; Infoblox says similar scam content is still widespread online. No police or regulatory action is reported as of 29 October 2026.

What remains unknown

  • Which AI tool was used and who made the adverts.
  • Whether anyone was deceived by the adverts that used her face, and how much money such victims lost.
  • When the adverts first ran and where they were shown.
  • The exact wording of the News Corp original, which could not be read.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The News Corp investigation, as compiled by Yeeyi, says scammers used her face to make AI scam videos, and the security firm Infoblox, which investigated the batch of adverts, traced an operator running polished AI video adverts from fake news pages that sent users to fund-recovery phishing sites. The advert shown on Facebook built from footage of her media interviews depicted her promoting the fake service, and she describes her distress at it. The tool and maker are not identified, and no technical analysis of her advert beyond the Infoblox investigation is reported.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The woman, a Chinese-Australian scam victim, lost A$49,000 to a scam in 2023 and discovered earlier in 2026 that her face had been taken and used by scammers to make AI scam videos.

Causal attribution. News Corp report as compiled by Yeeyi; the AI description is the report's.

  • yeeyi.com(opens in new tab) supports · Chinese
    '在 2023 年被骗走 4.9 万澳元' '直到今年早些时候，她才发现自己的面部影像被盗取，被骗子用来制作 AI 诈骗视频。'
Reported A video circulating on Facebook claimed that Interpol could help investment-scam victims recover their money; the footage of her came from interviews she had given to Australian media.

Causal attribution. News Corp report as compiled by Yeeyi.

  • yeeyi.com(opens in new tab) supports · Chinese
    'Facebook 上流传着一则视频，声称国际刑警组织（Interpol）可以帮助投资诈骗受害者追回被骗资金。' '画面素材取自她早前接受澳洲媒体采访的片段'
Reported The security firm Infoblox investigated the adverts and traced an operator who used fake news pages to run polished AI video adverts that directed users to phishing sites claiming to help victims recover losses.

Causal attribution. Infoblox findings as reported by News Corp and compiled by Yeeyi; the Infoblox report itself was not read.

  • yeeyi.com(opens in new tab) supports · Chinese
    '网络安全公司 Infoblox 对这批广告展开调查。该机构追踪到一名幕后人员：对方依靠虚假新闻页面投放制作精良的 AI 视频广告，再诱导用户跳转至宣称可以 “帮受害者挽回损失” 的钓鱼网站。'
Reported The vice-chair of the Scam Victims Alliance was the first to recognise her in the Facebook AI advert.

Causal attribution. Report as compiled by Yeeyi.

Reported She says the advert disgusted her and that she worries others will be deceived; the report says the trauma of the original scam had not healed and that she found the use of her image in the scam hard to accept.

Causal attribution. Her account as reported; the connection of her distress to the AI advert is her own.

  • yeeyi.com(opens in new tab) supports · Chinese
    '这支 AI 广告视频制作精良，让她既感到恶心，又担心会有其他人上当受骗。' '如今，当年受骗留下的心理创伤还未平复，自己的形象又被拿去实施这种卑劣骗局，她难以接受。'
Reported Meta removed the adverts using her image after Hong Kong media reported them; Infoblox says similar scam content remains widespread online.

Causal attribution. Report as compiled by Yeeyi; no statement from Meta was read.

  • yeeyi.com(opens in new tab) supports · Chinese
    '香港媒体报道此事后，Meta 下架了使用' '但 Infoblox 称，网络上同类诈骗内容依旧大量存在。'

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in Simplified Chinese by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-29 and translated by the research agent (an AI) into English; no human translator or reviewer was involved. Yeeyi states that the article is compiled and translated from a News Corp Australia (news.com.au) report; the news.com.au original returned HTTP 403 and was not read, so the passages are the Yeeyi Chinese text. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Australia. Court countries: Unknown.

The report describes her as a Chinese-Australian woman (澳洲华裔女子) and gives her account to Australia's News Corp, so her country is Australia. It does not say where the Facebook adverts were shown or where the operator worked (one caption says the scam is believed to come from Russia), so the event country is left empty.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-29: Published as a core case (depicted_or_impersonated): a News Corp Australia investigation, compiled by Yeeyi, reports that a scam victim's face, taken from her media interviews, was used in AI video adverts on Facebook for a fake fund-recovery scam, and that the security firm Infoblox investigated the adverts and traced their operator. She describes disgust and distress. The record rests on one reporting chain read through a Chinese relay; she is not named.

People described

A Chinese-Australian single mother and social-media creator who lost A$49,000 to a scam in 2023 and had spoken publicly about it; she is not named in this record.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person counted: the woman whose likeness was used and who describes her distress and objection. The report does not describe anyone deceived by the adverts, so no viewers are counted. No other depicted person is described.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#ai-video-adverts#likeness-misuse#fund-recovery-scam#facebook-ads#scam-victim#australia

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Australian scam victim says her face was used in AI video adverts on Facebook for a fake fund-recovery scam, News Corp report says. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-australia-scam-victim-advocate-face-used-in-ai-video-adverts-for-fake-fund-recovery-scam

BibTeX

@misc{2026_australia_scam_victim_advocate_face_used_in_ai_video_adverts_for_fake_fund_recovery_scam,
  title = {Australian scam victim says her face was used in AI video adverts on Facebook for a fake fund-recovery scam, News Corp report says},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-australia-scam-victim-advocate-face-used-in-ai-video-adverts-for-fake-fund-recovery-scam}
}

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