BBC
Nikki MacLeod believed she was sending money to a woman she was in an online relationship with
A victim of a complex online romance fraud has told BBC Scotland she was completely convinced by the deepfake videos used to cheat her out of £17,000.
Nikki MacLeod, 77, sent gift cards and made bank transfers and Paypal, believing she was sending money to a real woman with whom she was in an online relationship.
She said she was initially skeptical, but felt reassured by the person's video messages, which she now knows were fake.
She wants to warn others about the growing use of AI technology by scammers.
Nikki made contact with BBC Radio Scotland's morning show during the BBC's Scam Safe week last month.
The retired teacher from Edinburgh said: “I'm not a stupid person but she managed to convince me that she was a real person and that we were going to spend our lives together.”
Tips for spotting an AI deepfake video – explains Dr Lynsay Shepherd
The 77-year-old said she felt alone after losing her parents during lockdown and the end of a long-term relationship. She started talking to people online and met the person she knows as Alla Morgan in a chat group.
He was told that this person worked on an oil rig in the North Sea and was asked to purchase Steam gift cards to allow him to continue speaking. These cards are generally used to purchase video games. The person Nikki was chatting with told her that she needed them to get her an internet connection on the platform so they could continue talking.
Nikki said she was skeptical but was persuaded to buy cards for several hundred pounds.
She repeatedly asked Alla Morgan for a live video call which was declined or didn't work. That's when she started receiving recorded video messages.
“I was starting to think, are you a real person?” » said Nikki.
“Then she sent me a video saying, 'Hi Nikki, I'm not a scammer, I'm on my oil rig,' and I was totally sold.
“A few weeks later she sent me another video, also on the oil rig with bad weather in the background. This was before she started asking me for all this money.”
Scammers used AI to generate video of woman claiming to be Alla Morgan
The images and videos sent to Nikki were created using AI technology.
There is no way of knowing where the image of the woman – Alla Morgan – came from.
This could have been achieved using the face of a real person with no connection to the scammers and no idea that their identity was used.
Nikki said the documents, images and videos sent to her were enough to convince her to part with her money.
“She (Alla Morgan) said she was going to come and visit me and asked if I could pay for her holiday from the oil rig to come to Scotland,” Nikki said.
Nikki was given contact details of a company Alla allegedly worked for and was contacted by someone from their HR department who asked for money to pay for a helicopter.
“She said she would pay me back, so I gave them $2,500,” Nikki said.
The scam was eventually exposed when Nikki attempted to make another payment to a bank account, supposedly belonging to Alla Morgan, and was informed by her own bank that she was being defrauded.
Police Scotland confirmed they were investigating the matter.
How to spot a deepfake video scam
BBC Scotland asked Dr Lynsay Shepherd, an expert in cybersecurity and human-computer interaction at the University of Abertay, to take a look at the video messages sent to Nikki.
She said: “At first glance it looks legit, if you don't know what to look for, but if you look at the eyes, the eye movements aren't quite right.
“There are a number of apps, even something as simple as a face swap app or filters, that can do this. You can sometimes see when people are talking, when you look around the jaw, the filter slips a little.
“It’s relatively simple to do.”
Dr Lynsay Shepherd said videos created using AI technology can often appear legitimate at first glance, but there are usually telltale signs that they are fake.
Dr Shepherd said online scammers often pretend to be in a location where a face-to-face meeting or even a live video call is not possible.
“Oil rigs are one of the most common – in the military on base, at a doctor overseas – and then usually they build that relationship and then say 'there was an emergency, I 'I need money to travel'.”
Nikki said she sent around £17,000 in total to the scammers.
Her bank and PayPal managed to recover around £7,000 of that money, but the scammers persuaded her to send some of the money as personal payments, via PayPal's friends and family function. This was not recovered.
PayPal said it does not cover personal payments under PayPal buyer protection.
In a statement, a spokesperson added: “We are very sorry to hear that this has happened to Ms MacLeod. Authorized push payment (APP) fraud, which includes romance scams, is a threat that has developed throughout the sector.”
He urged PayPal users to be wary of “unusual payment requests” and added “always question unsolicited approaches in case it's a scam.”
On its website, Steam warns of increasing reports of scammers forcing victims to purchase Steam Wallet gift cards. The company said people should never give a Steam Wallet gift card to someone they don't know. »
Police Scotland said an investigation was underway after the fraud was reported in October and inquiries were ongoing.
A spokeswoman added: “We are asking people to be vigilant and encourage anyone who thinks they may have been the victim of fraud or a scam to contact police on 101.”
Nikki told us the scammers continue to contact her, recently sending her a newspaper article claiming Alla Morgan is now in a Turkish prison and needs more money.
She wants others to learn from her experience.
“These scammers have no empathy. It's their job and they do it very well,” she said.
“The documents looked real, the videos looked real, the bank looked real.
“With the introduction of artificial intelligence, anything can be wrong.”
