NSW man Gary Meachen loses $400,000 in Facebook scam featuring Elon Musk, Anthony Albanese

Gary Meachen has worked hard his whole life, but says he now faces relying on the pension to survive after falling victim to a scam video on Facebook featuring Elon Musk, Anthony Albanese and Dan Andrews.

Elon Musk is joined by Anthony Albanese and other high profile Australians in a scam Facebook ad that led to NSW man Gary Meachen losing his retirement funds. Picture: Cybertrace

Gary Meachen has worked hard his whole life, but says he now faces relying on the pension to survive after falling victim to a scam video on Facebook featuring Anthony Albanese and losing life savings of more than $400,000.

Elon Musk, Julia Gillard, Dan Andrews and TV hosts Karl Stefanovic, Natalie Barr and Piers Morgan also appeared in the fraudulent video that drew Mr Meachen, 71, into losing everything he had for retirement. He said he and his wife, who together work in property management in Broke in the NSW Hunter Valley, were devastated on realising they were among the many thousands of Australians scammed online.

Gary Meachen fell victim to a scam ad on Facebook featuring Anthony Albanese and lost his life savings of more than $400,000. Picture: Facebook

“It gets you in the guts because you’re a failure and you’re a fool. We’ve gone broke in Broke, basically,” he said.

The video purported to be an invitation from billionaire entrepreneur Mr Musk to “45 chosen ones who will get a chance to earn money that will change your life”.

Real video footage of Mr Musk and the high-profile Australians had been manipulated so it appeared as though they were discussing the scheme.

Australia is being relentlessly targeted with scams due in part to the nation’s relative wealth and huge pool of superannuation money, cyber investigators say.

Tech giant Meta’s failure to stop the scams circulating on Facebook, a lack of action from Australian authorities, and bank shortcomings have also been blamed for the vast losses.

Scam videos featuring prominent Australians are understood to be designed to harvest details of potential victims, which are then sold to crime syndicates around the world. One syndicate alone fleeced more than 30,000 Australians out of about $200m with the help of mass advertising campaigns on Facebook, The Australian revealed last month.

Mr Meachen said he had been a longtime follower of Mr Musk and, to his great regret, was convinced the offer was real.

He provided his details and was contacted by a scammer with a cryptocurrency trading scheme.

A platform showed fake profits from his “investments”, but when he tried to withdraw some of the funds he was asked to put more money in until he had nothing left.

“I’ve never gone for the pension, I’ve never been on the dole, I’ve never bludged off the government,” he said. “And (now) we’re going to have to go on the pension or we’re going to have to do something because we don’t have enough money to pay the bills.”

Mr Meachen has filed a report with federal authorities detailing how he and his wife lost a total of $411,000. The report has been referred to the NSW Police Force. He also contacted cyber investigations firm Cybertrace to see if any of the money could be recovered.

Cybertrace chief executive Dan Halpin said while most people would be unlikely to fall for the deepfake videos, those with less cyber literacy and particularly older generations were vulnerable.

When scam videos had been reported to Facebook previously, the platform responded that there was no breach of standards and the videos weren’t removed, Mr Halpin said. “The whole idea of using deepfakes is they’re presenting trusted household names and they’re leveraging off the trust these people have developed over years,” he said.

Mr Meachen said he was a community-minded person who had been recognised for his involvement in responding to deadly NSW bushfires, for services to the community and charities, and for contributions to the Central Coast United Football Club.

He and his wife previously ran a NSW Central Coast business and they were trying to build a nest egg to feel comfortable in retirement.

“He’d have to be the most incredible seller I’ve ever come across,” Mr Meachen said of the scammer who engaged him.

Those behind the scam were still calling and urging the couple to raise more money to get their funds released, he added.

Mr Musk’s image is manipulated in the video to say people who follow his advice will be “able to quit your job and never work again … This is not another video trying to swindle money out of you because I respect you and want to earn your trust. What’s the difference between those scammers and me? First off, I’m Elon Musk and I need nothing from you. I will show you proof that my project really works”.