The fake AI veteran scam

0:04If you spent a lot of time doomscrolling on social media recently, you may well have seen a video that sounds like this. I know I'm not a normal looking man, but if you did stay, can you tell me if you like my England flags? It's a video from the TikTok account called Taylor's Flags. I've removed the background music from the video. The man in the video is wearing a baseball cap. It has the word veteran embroidered on the cap face. There's a Union Jack below that word too. He's wearing dog tags, a poppy and a Green Army t-shirt. He's filming the video while walking out of his suburban, very British-looking garage.

0:44The exterior of his house is draped in Union Jack flags. One of his eyes has corneal scarring. It is completely white, presumably due to a traumatic injury. The video then cuts to clips of him making his wooden flags. You see him cutting the wood, sanding it down, painting it, and even blowtorching the edges. In a later video, he tells his viewers. So I've been getting a lot of comments asking where to get my flags. So I've just added the link to my store in my bio, or you can send me a DM for the link. I thank you all for the love and support. However, the flags, which cost£150, are not handmade by him.

1:25They're not even handmade by veterans. In fact, they're not handmade. They are plywood, low-quality, machine-made flags built not in Britain, but in China. And that man in the video is not real. He's an AI-generated avatar. Today on Nudge, we're investigating the fake AI veteran scam and the psychological biases these videos use to manipulate viewers.

1:55Most businesses have an overwhelming amount of data. It's typically scattered across the business in different tools with different teams. but because it's scattered no one can use it. That is where HubSpot come in. HubSpot connects it all, every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation and they connect it into one platform that every team can work from. Because when you know more you grow more. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. hello you're listening to nudge with me phil agnew i didn't first discover these ai veteran videos while scrolling on tiktok or youtube i first heard about them a few weeks back after watching a bbc investigation by the reporter jonathan holmes this injured veteran isn't real and neither is he in fact none of these veterans are real they're all ai generated and they're all being used to sell products on social media.

2:57The BBC identified 45 channels, like the one I shared at the start of the video. I found some of those accounts. Here's an account named James Melody Bryant, which features what appears to be a young white man with facial scarring. Comments said nobody is going to buy a UK flag from someone who looks like you. And here's a video from the account called Rick's Flags 6, which shows a black man, also with corneal scarring wearing a veteran baseball cap if you're with me leave a comment tell me where you're from and let me show you what these hands can still do now all of these clips are ai generated but the videos look incredibly realistic and they are persuading hundreds of people if not thousands of people to buy the products they advertise here's the bbc reporting on the scam raymond saw one of these videos on tiktok he clicked through to an external link and spent£155 buying what he thought was a handmade wooden flag.

3:56Instead, a cheap plywood version turned up from China. The BBC reporter interviewed Raymond and he rightly was pretty upset. I just think they're despicable. Using our disabled army veterans is abhorrent. Praying on our heartstrings to help these people out, which I think is a despicable thing to do. The AI videos don't just show the army veterans, they show the AI-generated wives of the veterans, creating videos thanking viewers for supporting them. Whoever leaves a comment for my husband on this post, you guys mean the world to us. This scam is pretty horrible for consumers who end up buying these crap products, but for real veterans, these videos are particularly harmful.

4:43One veteran interviewed on the BBC called this practice disgusting. real veterans told me they are horrified by these videos now if i said to you that man doesn't exist really yeah oh god and he's completely ai generated you're joking no how does that make you feel disgusted that is um sorry that's taken my uh breath away a little bit there that's horrific it looks so believable i mean you know people do crazy things in this world but that's that's on a sick level. It really is sickening. And the more AI veteran videos you watch, the more sickening it is. Here's another where the fake AI avatar eulogises over his supposedly fallen allies.

5:29I didn't serve this country for money. I served her because I love her. Some of me mates never came home. So every flag I carve, I carve like it's going over their grave. All of this just to sell cheap mass-produced products. The BBC bought one of the bags from one of the scam profiles and showed it in their reporting. This bag was advertised online as a genuine handmade British veteran bag. As you can see, definitely not what was advertised and this cost somebody£65. I've left a link to the BBC article in the show notes so you can look at the bag. It is clearly nothing like the product advertised in the AI generator video.

6:09These AI veteran videos, they're everywhere. The BBC found 45 British TikTok accounts with these AI avatar videos, but other reporters talk about similar accounts gaining millions and millions of views on Instagram, on YouTube, and elsewhere. I've found hours and hours of similar AI-generated content across TikTok, but also on Instagram and Facebook. It's impossible to say how many people have been convinced by these videos, but I should say that they look pretty convincing. The people in these videos look real, the products they're selling look real, and the injuries they have look real. One thing that I've noticed is that all the videos look distinctly British.

6:52The videos have lots of small elements within them that really make them look like they're filmed in the UK. The AI actors are wearing poppies, they're walking out of very classic 1930s brick-built British houses, the sky is always an overcast British grey and there's the distinctive British wheelie bin often in the background of the video. The voices as you heard they sound British they use regional accents and that makes it even more persuasive and these AI avatars in the videos they're not hyper polished AI models that we've started to see in adverts and even in movies in some cases. These avatars they've got dirt on their face, they've got scarring, they've got overgrown stubble and creased t-shirts and all of those imperfections, they make the AI avatar look even more real.

7:42Now, I'll be honest, I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't fall for the scam. I'm fairly certain that most of you wouldn't fall for the scam. These videos are not perfect. I think the movement of the mouths of the avatars in the videos, it looks a bit off. And the voice in the video, as you can probably hear is a bit too monotone. In fact the real videos they use this really loud background soundtrack which I removed but I believe they use that to hide the poor quality of the voice recording. But they are still incredibly realistic looking videos and it is no surprise that so many people have fallen for the scam.

8:21What makes me so fascinated but also disgusted by this scam is that the video creators are clearly using behavioural science principles to persuade. I think the creators are using three well-researched psychological principles to manipulate viewers. Firstly, they make the products appear handmade. Secondly, they use veterans. And thirdly, they use veterans with visible injuries. These three elements, I think, make the viewers far more likely to buy. And it is no surprise that the scammers have created videos with these elements. They are doing it on purpose to persuade. So, let's start with the handmade element.

9:06Almost all of the videos show veterans chiselling the wooden flags by hand, or sewing the bags by hand using their sewing machine in their living room. This, of course, is a calculated ploy. Consumers prefer handmade products, and there is plenty of evidence to prove it. In 2015, three researchers from Rotterdam University suspected that handmade goods appealed more than identical made machine products. To find out, they showed 147 Dutch consumers four items. The first was a€70, 100 % wool scarf. The second, a stainless steel,€90 knife. They showed them some€200 gold jewellery. and a set of five euro greeting cards.

9:50All participants were shown these products alongside their prices. However, one group of participants was told that the products relied solely on handwork and are completely handmade, whereas the other group were shown the same products, the same price, but they were told that the products were machine made. That one difference, whether it was hand or machine made, had a tremendous difference on how the products were viewed. All the handmade products received a significant bump in ratings. The knives were seen as 2.4 % more attractive, the cards 5.2%, the scarf 10.9 % and the jewellery 14.6%. On average, the handmade products saw an 8 % boost in perceived attractiveness.

10:35But attractiveness won't guarantee sales. So in a follow-up experiment, 487 Austrians were shown ceramic mugs, soap, leather wallets, and stationery. Again, some were told that this product is machine-made, while others were told that it is fully handmade. But this time, the researchers measured purchase intent. Participants were asked if they would buy one of those gifts for a loved one. Turns out, the handmade label boosted purchase intent across all products by 7.9%. Of course, this isn't surprising. Handmade products require more labour than machine-made products, and that labour costs more, thus making the product more expensive and more alluring.

11:20Most brands know this. It's why the café Pret-a-Manger proudly declares on its packaging that each sandwich is freshly handmade every day, or lovingly handmade throughout the day. Pret isn't alone in calling attention to its handmade goods. Cosmetic brand Lush promote fresh handmade cosmetics. And the shoe company, Vance, proudly promote their Serio sneakers as handmade only in America. All the AI veteran videos use this bias for handmade goods to influence their viewers. By making the products look handmade, viewers will be far more likely to pay£150 for the products. the next psychological principle these videos use is the authority bias the authority bias suggests that we are more likely to follow the advice of people in authority one of the most cited studies on this principle is leonard bickman's 1974 study the social power of a uniform this is a classic study bickman had male researchers stop passers-by on the street while wearing one of three outfits The first, ordinary civilian clothing, so a jacket and tie.

12:31The second, a milkman's uniform. You can tell this study was from the 70s. But the third uniform was a guard's uniform, and it looked a lot like a police officer's uniform. They gave people, random real pedestrians on the sidewalk, small odd orders. They would say, pick up this bag for me, pick up this litter for me. And this person is over parked at the meter, but he doesn't have any change. Give him a dime. The real people in the study obeyed the person far more when he was wearing a guard outfit than when he was wearing a milkman's uniform or civilian clothing. In the parking meter task, about 89 % of people complied with the guard, whereas just 33 % of people complied with the civilian.

13:10We obey what those in authority tell us to do, and veterans naturally hold some authority because they've served in the military. In 2023, YouGov surveyed more than 12 ,000 British people, including members of the public, employers, healthcare professionals and the media, about their views of veterans. And what they found was that most of the public and most employers saw veterans positively. And 71 % of employers thought veterans had a strong work ethic. It is no surprise, therefore, that these AI scam artists use veterans in their videos. Veterans have a position of authority, and that authority makes viewers more likely to comply with their requests.

13:53But the veterans gain even more persuasive power because they have risked their lives for their country. That sacrifice makes them more persuasive. You'll be familiar with this. History is littered with leaders who grew their influence by sacrifice. In Japan, CEOs voluntarily dock their own salary after they've had a poor performance. Japan Airlines CEO Mitsuku Totori sacrificed 30 % of her pay after two members of cabin crew broke pre-flight alcohol rules in 2026. That sacrifice made her look committed to her job and allowed her to stay in charge. Political leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Emmanuel Macron, Sanei Takaachi and Narendra Modi all claim to sleep for less than four hours per night, with Thatcher allegedly saying that sleep is for wimps.

14:47Sacrificing sleep, sacrificing rest, or at least telling people you do, made each of the leaders seem more dedicated. But the AI avatars in these videos showcase their sacrifice by each clearly showing a major traumatic injury. The most common is the injured eye, but others have facial scars, amputated arms, and even a traumatic nasal amputation where the AI avatar's nose has been lost following an injury. This, again, is designed to manipulate us. There's plenty of evidence that suggests that someone who has been through traumatic pain is seen as more persuasive. To explain, let me introduce a study that I've shared before on the show.

15:31It's one conducted in 2013 about the effects of extreme rituals. Every year, on the first full moon day of the Tamil month of Thai, Hindus celebrate Taipusam. The festivities began at dawn. Devotees of the Hindu god Lord Subramanyam gathered outside a temple in a neighbourhood known as Little India. Some wore kavadis, metal frames used for decoration and skin piercing. The festival is infamous really for devotees ceremonially inflicting pain on themselves as a means to balance their spiritual debt. Worshippers pierce their own skin, their tongue and their cheeks with skewers. They carry 30 kilogram bamboo structures and they drag carts attached to their skin by hooks for several hours.

16:20They don't feel the pain. That's because the devotees prepare themselves for a maximum about a month or two, or a minimum about a week. The anthropologist Dimitri Keskalatas wondered if watching devotees experience this pain increased their devotion. In 2013, Keskalatas and his colleagues flew to Mauritius to study Taipusam. They recruited 86 men and split them into three groups. 19 performed the painful devotion, 32 watched the painful devotion, and 35 performed a low ordeal non-painful worshipping. So that was stuff like singing collective prayer, but no piercing the skin with skewers. After four hours of worshipping, each participant was paid 200 Mauritian rupees, which is roughly two days wages.

17:12Next, in a private booth, participants could anonymously donate any amount of money to their local temple. The results were striking. Those who took part in the low ordeal worship, with no pain, donated 40 % of their pay, 81 rupees. Those who performed the painful high ordeal devotion donated 66 % of their pay, 133 rupees. But the biggest donors were those who watched the high ordeal worshippers. They gave 80 % of their pay, 161 rupees. The more pain a participant saw, the more they donated. These AI videos leveraged the same bias. By showing veterans with extremely traumatic injuries, they attempt to pull on our heartstrings to persuade.

18:00And to be fair, this is not just a scam technique. The psychological preference for pain is used by brands. Some brands link their service with pain. Tough Mudder, a gruelling obstacle course with electric shocks and ice baths, grew to 1 million registrations in less than three years by calling itself probably the toughest event on the planet. Their adverts feature near-endless images of runners experiencing pain. Other brands are less direct. Alpersin, an anti-hair loss caffeine shampoo, includes the unnecessary addition of methanol in its formula. Methanol does not help with hair loss, but it does provide a tingling, subtly painful experience that makes the shampoo feel more effective.

18:45Pain isn't always a bad thing. A small amount of it can make a product or service appear more potent. But these AI veterans are using it to manipulate. And the final thing these videos use is humiliation. In the scam videos, the veterans are almost always being ridiculed or abused by a member of the public.

19:07On screen, the videos show fake comments from more fake AI avatars telling the fake veteran that nobody would ever buy a wooden flag from a person that looks like you. It's harmful. It's misleading. It's sickening. But it is also persuasive. It is uniquely designed to capture attention and prompt people to buy. So what are the AI platforms that generate these videos doing? How are the social media platforms responding? And how can you spot spammy content like this? We'll cover all of that after the break. The Ross Simmons Show is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

19:47I've been following Ross for a while. His podcast is great. And an episode I'd highly recommend is called Mastering Time, Prioritisation Over Productivity. He gives some really well thought out tips on how to prioritise your time, including something I care a lot about, which is how a small percentage of your efforts can drive the majority of your results. So go and listen to The Ross Simmons Show wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome back. You're listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. These AI avatar scan videos, they are not unique. They are all over social media. It has never been easier to create and share these videos.

20:25So it is no surprise that these videos are all over these platforms. So what can we do to avoid being scammed by these videos? The BBC asked tech journalist Will Guyatt for his advice on how to spot this AI-generated content. Look closely for errors and mistakes in videos, extra fingers, the item looking differently. If it looks too good, don't believe it. Why not show it to a friend, a member of the family, or somebody you know who is internet savvy? It's the old phrase, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It's good advice, but I'm really not sure how easy that advice is to follow.

21:02Firstly, all of the videos we've looked at for this video do not contain the major flaws he mentioned. Nobody has extra fingers, none of the items change throughout the videos like he suggested they might. All of these clips look far more realistic than that. And sharing the video to a member of your family, it really might not help. If you've been convinced it's real, showing it to your wife or your husband, that might not help. They'll probably be convinced too. Of course, if something appears too good to be true, it should raise the alarm bells. But these scam artists aren't telling viewers that they've won£1 ,000 and they just have to share their bank details to access it.

21:37No, they're just selling products. It doesn't seem too good to be true. It seems normal. Social media is full of influencers flaunting products. So it's difficult to spot AI scams today, but AI content is only going to get harder and harder to spot. These videos will keep getting better and better. I'm recording this in early October and there's another story doing the rounds right now about a viral social media influencer who I genuinely thought was real. It's an influencer called Jean Philanthrop. He wears a suit, he has a very odd blonde bob hairstyle. If you've seen this influencer before, you probably know who I mean.

22:17He also has an extremely large neck. He often shadow boxes in his videos, and his videos at the time of recording have been viewed tens of millions of times. When I first saw this influencer, I genuinely thought he was a real person, even though he looked a bit odd. But I was wrong. And videos of him have been viewed tens of millions of times on social media. And of course, the creators are using this fake influencer to profit. The day after Jean's first video appeared online, his account started promoting a meme coin in his name. That's a cryptocurrency that's built around an internet joke, a character or a trend.

22:56Meme coins are highly speculative and largely driven by social media hype, which is why the UK's financial regulator says anyone investing in them should be prepared to lose all of their money. That clip is from another BBC report which I've also linked to in the show notes of this episode for you to take a look. The point is, I think we're at a threshold. A threshold where some AI generated content is so realistic that it is becoming impossible to tell what is real and what is fake. Soon we won't be able to spot AI avatars. They will look and sound too human. So if the AI content is getting too good, surely it's on the social network platforms to remove this scam content.

23:36Well, that's apparently what TikTok did. Here's the BBC reporter Jonathan Holmes sharing what happened after he informed TikTok about the videos. In a statement, TikTok said, We enforce strict rules against harmfully misleading AI-generated content and scams, and we have removed the violative content and accounts shared with us. Now, they have removed the accounts the BBC shared with them. And yet when I looked online for this content, I immediately found three more accounts sharing the exact same videos. All of the content in today's video was recorded after TikTok made that statement. So yes, they deleted some accounts, but they did not put any rules or frameworks in place to stop the same content getting uploaded again and again.

24:23And actually, when I started looking for this veteran AI content, I found a scam far more widespread than the British veterans. I found dozens, dozens of accounts peddling the same scam to an American audience. It took me months to make these flags. Please don't scroll. What are you doing, you idiot veteran? Veterans, please don't scroll. I spent months making these and they are failing. Whoever leaves a comment for my husband on this post, you guys mean the world to us. You're a 50-year-old veteran making wooden flags in your garage. Let that sink in. The solution to this problem is not teaching viewers to spot AI-generated content.

25:04That will become, or possibly already is, impossible. The solution is not banning the accounts that post this content. TikTok did that, and dozens more popped up straight away posting the same stuff. Even if you find a way to ban all versions of a single video, that won't work. The creators will just use AI to create a slightly different version of the video, perhaps with a different avatar, perhaps even selling the goods to a different country. These platforms also can't alter their algorithms to de-platform these videos, because these videos use the psychological hacks that real human creators use to draw in our attention, and those are the same hacks that the algorithms use to amplify your content.

25:45And let's be clear, this problem is about to get much worse. The scammers are using extremely effective psychological principles to persuade, but as the technology improves, they will only get better. The videos are designed to prey on our heuristics and our biases, and the improving tech will only make that easier. I think the only solution to this problem is regulation. Every AI-generated video, I think, needs a legally enforced bit of metadata that reveals that the video has been AI-generated. Then, platforms like TikTok should show a warning on screen whenever an AI-generated video is shown.

26:26Only then will this problem be solved. If these videos were labelled as AI-generated content, it would immediately remove the possibility that someone could have been scammed. But the only way that can happen is if the AI platforms are forced legally to reveal that the videos they produce are AI generated. This scam is really just the tip of the iceberg. AI generated avatars are being used not just to sell overpriced cheap products, but to manipulate voters, to blackmail lovers, to influence juries and to misinform the masses. The problem will continue to spiral and spiral until each video is labelled correctly.

27:08If a video is created with AI, everyone needs to know. That's all for today's episode of Nudge. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to learn more about this scam, then I highly recommend you read the BBC article I've linked to in the show notes. Also in the show notes, you'll find all the sources to the studies I've cited today. if you want more from Nudge please do sign up to the Nudge newsletter you'll find it at nudgepodcast.com when you go to nudgepodcast.com just click newsletter in the menu to find the newsletter every week for the newsletter I share the best behavioral science tip I have come across if you like Nudge then I think you'll like the newsletter that's all thank you again for listening I'll be back next Monday with another episode of Nudge cheers