CNN news anchor Richard Quest is one of a number of high-profile figures whose names and reputations are being hijacked to promote a dubious investment group on Facebook.
Facebook receives advertising revenue by promoting the fraudulent group and appears to have taken little action to curb it.
Press Gazette was alerted to the scam after seeing a promotion for the Richard Wealth Guide on Facebook which included a picture of Richard Quest.
The promotion, which appeared to be authored by Quest, suggested he had recommended stocks to his team which had risen by 45% in the space of a week.
When readers clicked on the link they were invited to join a Whatsapp group. Both Whatsapp and Facebook are owned by Meta.
Press Gazette joined the group posing as a wealthy businessman called “David” to find that we were instead connected with “Alyssa Mendez” who claimed to be working for a real, named, US wealth management company. We were also added to a Whatsapp community called US Stocks Investment Group 1304 which provided a forum for sharing investment advice.
“Mendez” offered share tips which she said would be free during a 100-day free trial. After that period she said the group charges 5% of profits on share sales as a commission.
When Press Gazette asked how Quest was involved, she said: “Each time we recommend stocks, they are jointly deployed by our founders Mr. John and Richard Quest, and then I send the transaction information to investors.
“He is too busy at work now. When he is free, he will join the group to communicate with everyone, and when we hold an offline signing meeting in the future, he will also come to the scene to communicate with everyone🤗.”
Press Gazette raised the issue with CNN on 21 March and was told the broadcaster was aware and had sought to get the fake Richard Quest Facebook removed. The following day CNN confirmed that the site had been taken down.
Press Gazette understands Facebook took the page down after CNN cited use of a copyright image without permission.
However, the same scammers continue to target Whatsapp sign-ups claiming to be running investment groups on behalf of a number of other high-profile figures.
Other high-profile figures misleadingly being used to promote the investment group include: CNBC Fast Money panellist Karen Finerman, US entrepreneur Scott Galloway, CEO of Ark Invest Cathie Wood and Goldman Sachs chief US equity strategist David Kostin.
At time of writing, more than a week after Press Gazette shared screengrabs and a link to a Facebook spokesperson, we have yet to hear whether any action has been taken to disable the site .
A Facebook spokesperson noted that the Richard Quest site was proactively removed and pointed us to Facebook policies that prohibit misrepresentation.
A CNBC spokesperson confirmed that the Facebook post was fake and did not come from Finerman.
Goldman Sachs similarly confirmed: “This is a fraudulent message and not representative of Goldman Sachs.”
The consumer website said: “Fraudsters are known to use online platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, to create scam ads and target consumers at scale. Recently, Revolut said that six in ten scams reported to it by UK customers came from Meta platforms (Meta being the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp).”
It said that fraudsters will “offer ‘trading advice’ as a way to lure you into larger dodgy schemes”.
Misleading and fake AI-generated content appears to have become more prevalent on Facebook in recent months. AI-generated images and videos are frequently used by creators on the site as way to farm easy clicks (Facebook pays many content creators on its site a share of ad revenue). Last month Press Gazette revealed how a faked video of a cat in an owl’s nest published by agency Newsflare had been viewed millions of times on the site.
In January, Meta sacked Facebook’s US fact-checkers.
Combined with Google, Facebook accounts for around two-thirds of all advertising sold in the UK (the pair are believed to gross at least £20bn a year from UK advertising alone).
Paid-for promotions for legitimate brands such as Fisher Investments, The Economist and RBC Brewin Dolphin appear in the same content feed as the scam financial advice adverts which use trusted names to promote them, making it difficult for Facebook users to know what is real and what is fake.
Press Gazette understands some publishers are finding it harder to get fraudulent and misleading content taken down from Facebook.
When Press Gazette confronted Whatsapp investment adviser “Alyssa” with the fact Quest did not know name his name was being used to promote the group she doubled down, saying: “Our company has not violated any rules or laws by using Mr. Richard’s reputation to host this event.”
Press Gazette has now left the group.
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