Rosenberg speaks out on fake financial scam

A veteran Bay Street economist is raising the alarm after his name and likeliness have been used in fake advertisements promising investors big returns on stocks in a pump and dump scam.

David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research, said the investment scam bilked thousands of dollars from victims who followed advice in videos recommending stocks on social media platforms.

“They’re having me on screen with my voice, which is purely fake, either advocating funds which I’m not running, since I’m not a fund manager in any event, and believe it or not, now they are having me on these sites, on video, advocating speculative penny stock picks, so it’s moved from the egregious to the dangerous,” Rosenberg told BNN Bloomberg in a Monday interview.

He said he‘s heard from people who are not even clients of his having lost money to the scam.

“I think we’ve estimated that at least $5 million has been siphoned off from what they are doing to me,” he said.

Rosenberg discussed the proliferation of fake AI-generated ads emphasizing the need for public awareness and regulatory action to combat the growing issue.

“It’s the perils and pitfalls of AI technology; this ability to completely and fraudulently pose as other people, and that includes me, for the past four or five months. We have the situation that’s really getting out of control, where there are these AI bots out there in cyberspace. They are pretending to be me in print, picture, video on different social media, primarily Facebook, Instagram, I think even TikTok, believe it or not, and they have me in print,” he said.

“They have me in picture, and now they have me in video, which they are increasingly perfecting with me, my firm’s logo, some non-existent admin assistant ready to steal your money.”

He said he contacted Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram to take down the advertisements but said they refused after repeated requests.

“Meta is not taking down these advertisements, obviously, because it’s deriving revenues from it, and that’s despite our constant complaining and our constant reporting,” said Rosenberg. “I spent this past weekend, people emailing me asking me, if this is true, am I really advocating the stock? Should I be putting my money in these investments that you’re recommending? Of course, I’m not recommending (them). People really have to have an awareness of what’s going on, because this fraud is spreading by the day, and the general investing population is not paying attention.”

Rosenberg said he has reported the scam to authorities but did not provide details on whether or not an investigation is taking place.

“Technology is a wonderful thing, it creates good and it creates evil,” said Rosenberg. “This is the evil part of it.”