Scam post featured on Facebook
The scam post has been viewed tens of thousands of times. Image by Facebook

Scammers take Aussies for fools with manipulated clip

Meghan Williams June 12, 2023
WHAT WAS CLAIMED

A Current Affair featured a government-run course on how to invest your money

OUR VERDICT

False. A clip from A Current Affair has been manipulated and is part of a scam investment scheme.

Alternative audio has been dubbed over the top of an A Current Affair (ACA) segment in order to prompt users to click on a suspicious link.

The video is a scam. 

The clip has been manipulated to promote an “investment platform” and asks viewers to follow a suspicious link where they can apparently register their interest and have the opportunity to win money.

AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR STOCK
 The post manipulates a TV segment about financial literacy. 

The Facebook video (archived here) at first appears to be a genuine news segment and uses a May 2023 clip from ACA. The original report showed a group of people participating in a financial literacy quiz to demonstrate that many Australians could be wasting money because they don’t understand the basics of finance. 

The manipulated Facebook video, however, has been cut and overlaid with alternative audio to claim “Gina Rinehart, Dick Smith, and Andrew Forrest have launched an investment platform with an initial deposit of $250 to earn an average of $15,000 per month.”

The voiceover tells viewers to “follow the link in the description, leave a request and you will have the opportunity to win some money.”

“The Australian government has developed courses on how to invest your money properly making it seem as if the group in the video is participating in such a course,” the post’s caption adds.

Scam post featured on Facebook
 The post’s caption makes reference to it being a government-run scheme. 

The account behind the post provides several red flags for scam content. The page was created recently in May 2023, has very few followers, and its profile picture seems to be a screenshot taken from the A Current Affair clip. 

AAP FactCheck has warned Facebook users about other scam posts that use manipulated news footage here and here.

The Verdict

The claim that A Current Affair featured a government-run course on how to invest your money is false. 

The Facebook video is a real ACA segment about financial literacy that’s been edited to promote a fake investment platform using an alternative voiceover.

False – The claim is inaccurate.

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