Jagmeet Singh's likeness used in fake Canadian 'cash allowance' ads
- Published on September 24, 2024 at 22:39
- 3 min read
- By AFP Canada
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"Get Guaranteed Payments in Canada!" the caption of a September 17, 2024 Facebook post exclaims.
The post includes a photo of Jagmeet Singh, the leader of one of Canada's minority political parties (archived here), with a list of supposed financial benefits for Canadians -- foregrounded by US $100 bills.
Similar posts including images of Singh and promoting an alleged cash allowance scheme for Canadians spread across Facebook at the same time.
Fake passive income ads frequently target Canadians and recent fraudulent promotions debunked by AFP also appropriated Singh's likeness.
The September ads claiming to promote guaranteed monthly payments link to different web pages, but none of them discuss cash allowances for Canadians. Rather, they lead to sites with generic articles, error pages and one site with text in German.
The profiles sharing the ads also exhibit characteristics that indicate the offers are not legitimate.
All of the pages have shared very little content and none related to passive income schemes. At least three of the pages had been created within the past two months.
One of the pages said it was running ads under its Page Transparency section. Meta's Ad Library -- the company's repository of advertisements on its platforms -- reveals the profile was running multiple ads using Singh's likeness, as well as others that claim to promote apparent credit card offers.
The links on these ads also lead to error pages.
AFP was unable to determine the motive for the ads, but they had the hallmarks of other deceptive marketing schemes targeting Canadians.
AFP has previously debunked other fake Facebook ads targeting Canadians. According to the credit monitoring TransUnion, Canada has seen a rise in fraudulent investment schemes, while local media have reported a rise in general phone and online scams.
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