TV host Deborah Knight caught up in dangerous Facebook scam

POPULAR TV presenter Deborah Knight has become the latest victim of a Facebook-based fake news scam that is stealing money from trusting fans and tarnishing her reputation.

EXCLUSIVE

POPULAR television presenter Deborah Knight revealed she had become the latest victim of a Facebook-based fake news scam that is stealing money from trusting fans and tarnishing her reputation.

The TV host and newsreader only discovered the social media fraud after friends asked about the story, which falsely claimed she’d left the TV industry to market face cream.

Despite efforts by Channel 9 lawyers, the scam is still hooking victims, with complaints mounting about fraudulent credit card charges.

Deborah Knight says the fake story wrongly told readers she’d made a “heartbreaking exit” from the TV industry to start her own beauty business.

And a Facebook spokeswoman refused to answer questions about why the hoax was still being advertised on the social network three months after it first surfaced.

Read more: Facebook attempt to tackle fake news backfires

Ms Knight is one of several Australian celebrities to have her likeness exploited in fake Facebook ads, with previous victims including actor Rebel Wilson, fellow TV hosts Lisa Wilkinson and Jessica Rowe, and radio host Eddie McGuire, who threatened to sue Facebook over a fabricated story.

Ms Knight told News Corp the fake story, which had been published Facebook in at least three different guises, wrongly told readers she’d made a “heartbreaking exit” from the TV industry to start her own beauty business.

TV presenter Deborah Knight has been swept up in a fake Facebook news scam, pictured above, conning money out of social media users.

“I was actually stopped by a mum at netball a couple of months ago, and she said ‘such sad news, I didn’t realise you’d left Channel 9, but how do I get my hands on some of these face creams?’ and I just went, ‘what are you talking about,” Ms Knight said.

“Then another mother stopped me 10 minutes later and said the same thing, and these were people who I thought would have sniffed out a scam if they’d seen it.”

The hoax article, which was promoted on Facebook as a story from three different publications, claimed readers could claim a free sample of a new face cream endorsed by Ms Knight if they handed over their credit card details.

Another version of the fake story about Deborah Knight, as advertised on Facebook.

But the company’s website, also published on Facebook, is filled with complaints about hundreds of dollars taken in erroneous charges, and Ms Knight said one Australian woman contacted her, upset at being exploited.

“She was a pensioner and she’d been charged $131 for a supposed free sample of face cream I was flogging and I just thought enough is enough. This is crazy,” she said.

“But how do you stop them? They’ve got all these fake quotes from actresses saying they love the product and it’s complete rubbish.”

Ms Knight said Channel 9’s legal team was pursuing the company, and had reported the scam to Facebook.

But a Facebook spokeswoman refused to answer why the fake articles had not been removed in the three months since they were flagged as scams.

Instead, the spokeswoman said Facebook was “focused on authentic connections” and had improved “automation to detect scams” and ways for users to report them.

The latest hoax on Facebook comes just one month after it was revealed Rebel Wilson’s name and likeness were exploited to promote a Bitcoin software scam, and after Eddie McGuire threatened to sue Facebook over a fraudulent story tying him to a product for erectile dysfunction.

Facebook and other social media platforms are also under increased scrutiny for spreading fraudulent news stories in the US, Europe, and UK, as well as in Australia where the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is probing whether digital platforms have “changed the quality or choice of media content supplied to consumers”.