Paul Davis, 43, was living in Southampton, England, unemployed and going through depression when someone started writing to him on Facebook. At first they were messages from a supposed Mark Zuckerberg, then from a supposed Elon Musk.
But the final blow came with videos generated by artificial intelligence of a woman claiming to be Jennifer Aniston, telling him that she loved him.
For months, Davis received those fake videos and increasingly intimate messages. Until he received an image of a driver’s license with a phrase that finally convinced him:
“I love you. Send me help.”
He responded like anyone who believes they have found something real: he paid 200 pounds, about 300 dollars, in Apple gift cards that he was never able to recover.
Davis says he knows another person who lost more than 1,000 pounds in an almost identical scam. An investigative team finally managed to track down the person responsible behind the fake actress.
But by then, the damage had already been done: not only to his wallet, but to what little hope he had left that someone, even a Hollywood star, might have noticed him.