Coast radio star Toni Street blasts fake weight loss ad scam

Radio star Toni Street is warning fans to not fall for a keto gummy weight loss ad using doctored images of her body and a shocking fake English accent to spruik diet pills.

The furious NZME Coast broadcaster is speaking out after fake ads appeared on social media this week using drastically altered images without her permission.

She said it’s a total scam and she would never endorse the weight loss product.

“It’s outrageous,” said Street, who champions body positivity and authentic social media content.

“They’ve stolen, uplifted images, video that I’ve done over many, many years and they’ve doctored my voice into a very unusual English accent that sounds nothing like my own voice and they’ve obviously enhanced a couple of photos to make me look a lot bigger than what I am to show that I’ve lost weight.

“It’s absolutely nothing to do with me.

“I think I’m pretty clear on my Instagram, I’m all about body positivity. I would never be flogging anything that was some sort of quick fix for weight loss.”

The advertisement features three doctored images of Street purporting to be three weeks apart. A badly lipsynced advertisement with a distinct British accent praises the keto gummies and includes a claim that Street recommends them.

Street said she felt angry at the scammers.

“My initial reaction was ‘how dare they use my image that way’.

“I like to be an authentic person on Instagram and to think that some people are getting sucked in thinking I’m flogging off a weight loss miracle gummy bear, it makes me extremely angry and I hate that they get away with this and there seems to be no recourse.”

Since posting about the scam Kiwi actress Antonia Prebble had commented saying she too had been subject to the same scam.

“I think it’s doing the rounds and they’re grabbing anyone they can see with a remote profile and so it’s going to happen to other people for sure.”

Street said Australian radio star Jackie ‘O’ Henderson was also being targeted with the same keto gummy scam.

Street was calling on her legion of fans, who initially drew her attention to the scam, to report the fake ad.

The more people reported this to Meta (formerly Facebook) the better it had of being taken down, she said.

“I feel like there needs to be a swifter way of dealing with it. I know Meta has a process but it’s just frustrating that sometimes it takes longer than it should to get these things taken down.”

Street becomes the latest in a long line of celebrities and well-known New Zealanders to have their image stolen to endorse products online.

Last year former National MP Paula Bennett was targeted in a bizarre online weight loss scam.

A fake Facebook page circulated with photos of the former deputy party leader before and after her gastric bypass surgery.

But the page falsely claimed she used a product called Via Keto, supposedly a “natural product” that offered a “simpler, faster and safer method of losing weight”.

Earlier in the year a fake Facebook page pretending to be Newstalk ZB’s Kate Hawkesby circulated telling people they’d won a share of $20,000.

In 2020, photos of radio host Mike Hosking were used to trick people into falling for cryptocurrency scams.