{"id":863101,"date":"2026-09-28T03:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/863101\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T03:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T03:14:17","slug":"wounded-veterans-selling-cheap-patriotic-merch-are-really-ai-fakes-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/863101\/","title":{"rendered":"Wounded veterans selling cheap patriotic merch are really AI fakes: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

War-wounded UK military veterans<\/a> hawking supposedly \u201chandmade\u201d patriotic items in emotional social media videos are nothing but AI-generated phonies selling cheap junk from China, according to a new report.<\/p>\n

Some shameless hucksters used artificial intelligence to make videos that show disabled and disfigured vets, claiming to have suffered injuries like a lost eye and nose in battle \u2014 while they ask for support from sympathetic buyers, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re despicable,\u201d Army veteran Raymond Gilbert told the outlet after he was tricked into paying $200 on what he thought was a wooden flag figure made by a disabled fellow military serviceman.<\/p>\n

Fake AI-generated videos of military veterans are popping up on platforms like TikTok and Facebook as part of a new scam. Facebook\/Luke Crafts<\/p>\n

But what arrived, he said, was a package with Chinese writing on the envelope, and inside, a printed image of a flag simply glued onto a piece of plywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing our disabled Army veterans is abhorrent \u2014 preying on our heartstrings to help these people out \u2014 is a despicable thing to do,\u201d Gilbert, who served as a quality manager for the British Army in Afghanistan, added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The videos encourage viewers to buy wooden flags under the scam of being \u201chandmade\u201d items from veterans. However, what arrives is a poor quality item from China. TikTok\/@ochubbrlm6l<\/p>\n

Gilbert, like others who were duped by the AI<\/a>, found the videos of the advertisements on TikTok, according to the outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The AI-videos depicted the veterans with sad captions about society turning their back on them after going to war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A screenshot of an AI-generated veteran video from a TikTok account under the name Taylor\u2019s flags. TikTok\/@ochubbrlm6l<\/p>\n

\u201cI will NEVER buy a wooden flag from a person that looks like you,\u201d one post depicting a fake vet claimed he was told before advertising the cheap products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar videos are found all over Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, with sellers advertising bags, cutting boards and door wreaths.<\/p>\n

Will Guyatt, a technology expert, told the outlet that these videos are made in just minutes, and can be told to deliberately make it overly emotional<\/a> with one prompt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another account on TikTok posts videos under the name James Melody Bryant. TikTok\/@username4716298<\/p>\n

Currently, consumers are stuck relying on e-commerce platforms and social media sites to proactively take down the fake ads, but once it\u2019s taken down, the gutless culprits will oftentimes just create a new account and repost the AI advertisements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many respects, we\u2019re fighting a bit of a losing battle,\u201d Daniel Fletcher, a British attorney, said about the AI-slop takeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"War-wounded UK military veterans hawking supposedly \u201chandmade\u201d patriotic items in emotional social media videos are nothing but AI-generated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,78264,74,1049,965],"class_list":["post-863101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-scams","tag-technology","tag-united-kingdom","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}