Siti Nurhaliza calls out fake shampoo endorsement using images of her and husband

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It is common for celebrities and renowned individuals to fall prey to fake online articles or ads about them endorsing products and both Malaysian singer Siti Nurhaliza and her husband, Khalid Mohamad Jiwa, are the latest victims. Images of the couple were apparently used by a seller on Facebook to claim that Siti's husband had used their shampoo products to cure his hair loss problem.

Siti clarified in an Instagram post that she and her husband have nothing to do with such products, adding that her products are Simplysiti, BeautSiti, and Afiya and she has an official shampoo collaboration with SugardollbyNN.

"When I remain silent, the more such businesses that neither my husband and I are involved in making such claims. Images of my husband and I were featured in this ad and used as testimonials as well. I have faced this countless times and my advice is, do your business the right way. Don't take advantage of others," the singer added. She also urged businesses to not promote products by using fake ads and called for consumers to be more sensitive to such ads.

sitinurhaliza fake ad

Other well-known individuals have also gotten unwanted attention over the past few years due to fake news. Tony Fernandes, group CEO of Capital A, for example, was once alleged by a hoax article in 2018 to be leaving AirAsia and jumping on financial tech. The article added that Fernandes would be quitting his job to "free up more time for a new company that he thinks will change the world more dramatically than AirAsia, QPR and Catherham F1 ever could". This resulted in AirAsia issuing a statement denying such claims.

In 2019, a Carousell scam ad featuring Singapore billionaire Peter Lim was said to have promoted a "new secret investment" endorsed by the billionaire. The Straits Times previously reported that the listing included screenshots of a fake article on its platform and included other logos of other Singapore Press Holdings’ publications such as The New Paper and The Business Times under “as seen on”.

Such endorsement scams have also surfaced in the cryptocurrency scene, with scammers now leveraging celebrity influencer to target consumers. A study by cybersecurity firm BrandShield revealed that American football player Tom Brady was the most impersonated personality across social media with 2,889 impersonations (17.49% of the top 10 in the list). This was followed by actor Matt Damon (13.79%), ex-professional boxer Mike Tyson (13.56%), Kim Kardashian (12.05%), and Paris Hilton (10.92%). According to the report, most of the impersonations were on Twitter and scammers are said to create fake NFTs to sell for cash on unprotected marketplaces.

Unfortunately, politicians are also not spared as fake online articles recently showed Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong endorsing cryptocurrency auto-trading programmes, such as BitIQ. The articles also claimed that the trading programmes generated "massive profits" and also portrayed the investments as "highly lucrative", the Singapore Police Force said, warning against such articles.

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