Fake investment ads and celebrity deepfakes

The one idea

The deepfake investment ad combines two lies that cover for each other: an impossible return (30% per month) and a trusted face (a famous businessman, a news anchor, a rugby star) apparently vouching for it. The face borrows trust so you do not scrutinise the number; the number promises escape so you do not scrutinise the face.

Compare:

"If it were fake, they could not use his face on Facebook — he would sue." — R50,000 deposited into a platform that vanishes in six weeks.

versus

"The return is impossible, so the face must be fake. Either way I check one thing: is this provider registered with the FSCA?"

The two checks that survive deepfakes

First, the arithmetic: 30% monthly turns R10,000 into R230,000 in a year. If that were real, banks would not lend money — they would use it themselves. Any return far above bank rates, guaranteed, with "no risk", is the signature of a scheme that pays early victims with later victims' deposits.

Second, the register: legitimate investment providers in South Africa must be authorised by the FSCA. The FSCA public search takes two minutes and does not care how convincing the video was. Unregistered plus unrealistic equals walk away — no third check needed.

Try it now

Pick any investment ad from your feed (or imagine one: "AI trading bot, 25% monthly, endorsed by a billionaire"). Write the two checks: the honest arithmetic of the promised return over 12 months, and where you would verify FSCA registration. Notice you never needed to decide whether the video was real.

Your win today

You test the claim, not the face. Impossible returns plus borrowed trust is the pattern, and the FSCA register is the two-minute answer.