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In this story
Cost of scams • How scams work • Common scams • Red flags • Protect yourself • Report scams • More resources
Country superstar Blake Shelton is so ruggedly handsome that People magazine once proclaimed him the “Sexiest Man Alive.” When J.R., a woman in her 60s in Alabama, heard she could enter a $1 million contest to be chosen the Grammy-winning singer’s fan of the year a few years ago, she decided to enter. To do so, she was told she needed to make three payments totaling $17,500 through wire transfers, which she did. But it was all a scam.
It was not Shelton’s manager who was communicating with J.R. There was no $1 million contest. Shelton, who’s known across musical genres after more than 20 seasons as a coach on NBC’s The Voice, is among a cavalcade of performers who have publicly condemned the criminals who highjack their names for profit.
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Victims’ losses can be significant. Impostor scams, which include fraudsters posing as celebrities, but more commonly as government agencies, banks or a friend or family member, were the No. 1 fraud complaint to the Federal Trade Commission in 2023, with 853,935 reports. Total losses were nearly $2.7 billion; the median loss was $800.
How celebrity impostor scams work
Criminals who pose as celebrities follow a playbook, says Anthony Pratkanis, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California in Santa Cruz. They nurture a relationship with their target before the “ask.”
In private messages, the con profiles the target to determine the best approach. If a target is lonely, it’s a romance scam; if altruistic, it’s a charity scam.
The criminals invent excuses about why they (wealthy celebrities) supposedly can’t access their funds, Pratkanis says.
Recent calls to AARP’s Fraud Watch Network Helpline (877-908-3360) reporting celebrity impostor scams include one from a woman who reported receiving a Facebook message from a Brazilian singer, who began a long correspondence with her.
The woman eventually decided to leave her husband for him. She’d given him their life savings — $300,000 — before learning he was a fraud.
Common celebrity impostor scams
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) make these scams harder to identity, as they offer criminals the tools they need to mimic voices, alter photos and avoid the spelling and grammar mistakes that once were red flags for fraud.
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