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Florida man says his wife ‘wants a divorce’ after he lost $45,000 on an AI-generated Elon Musk car scam (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 5 days ago by resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/56223456

George Hendricks, a 69-year-old from Leesburg, a suburb of Orlando, told ClickOrlando he lost $45,000 after a scammer targeted him with a deepfake video of Musk. Deepfakes are digitally-altered videos often used to impersonate notable public figures.

Now, Hendricks tells the outlet that his wife “wants to get a divorce” over the scam.

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[–] MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 25 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (24 children)

He’s an idiot…but his wife is also likely a gold digger?

…but at the same time he’s old and shouldn’t be expected to be tech savvy. I’m always worried about the viral nonsense my elderly mom falls for. If mom didn’t have a son like me drilling it into her head that everything is fake…theydve got her money by now.

What don’t understand is why isn’t social media fucking complicit for allowable these ads? Back in the 80s you couldn’t tell a white lie in a TV commercial or else you’d get fined…but YouTube and Facebook aren’t even required to have actual people checking the ads people post on their site?

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 12 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I feel like it's not just being tech-savvy though. He seems to lack basic common sense.

Why would you assume that a free car giveaway would necessitate you paying transfer fees, why wouldn't that have already been pre-arranged. After all it's a Tesla car presumably Tesla the ones who are going to deliver it. Additionally why would the competition be exclusive to a niche Facebook group and not a national campaign. It all just seems very obviously a scam.

My parents aren't particularly tech savvy and often send me AI garbage but they wouldn't be easy marks because both of them have critical thinking skills, or at least my mother does. But my dad has learnt to do what he's told.

[–] CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Plenty of giveaways work just like this. Paying the taxes and fees wasnt that common at all up until recently.

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