The Bondi Vet says his photo is being used on WhatsApp to lure victims, after a UK woman lost $22,800 to AI-powered impostors.
The beloved Bondi vet was alerted to the hoax by one of his Instagram followers who privately messaged him on the app to tell him his image was being used on free messaging service WhatsApp.. The follower claimed that someone had been using Brown’s likeness on the app, posing as him to supposedly lure female victims, like her sister.. “Hey Chris.. I was wondering if you are talking to someone in [redacted]?. My sister thinks
it’s you,” the message read, which Brown screenshot and shared on his Instagram Stories.. “Sorry [redacted].. That’s not me and is likely to be a scammer.. This sadly happens a lot,” he replied as per the screenshot.. “Thank you for answering.. I have tried to tell her that it is a scammer.. She won’t listen.. She met him on Whatsapp,” the follower replied.. In a captioned overlayed on the screenshot, Brown wrote that he sadly
receives messages like this daily.. “I get about 5 of these a day,” he revealed.. “And WhatsApp seems to be popular right now.. The ‘other’ me is a busy guy…” Indeed, Brown issued a warning to fans back in 2024, reminding them that he doesn’t have any private chat accounts online and warning them not to engage if they receive a message from him on these platforms.. “I’m sorry I even have to say this..
But just to be clear, I don’t have any other private chat accounts, pages or other special accounts.. Nor any Telegrams or chat rooms where I have offline conversations,” he wrote on Facebook at the time.. “Sadly, all of these are just scammers.. And not even good ones, the way they assume I talk is a little embarrassing.. And trust me, I don’t have the time!” he added.. “But seriously, please report and then ignore
them.. As quickly as I block them, more seem to appear.. But we will get there!. On Facebook, it’s just me with this blue tick.. “I’d rather be talking pets than scammers but enough is enough,” he concluded.. But his warning fell on deaf ears for some when it was revealed in May 2025 that a British woman had been defrauded out of $22,800 by scammers who posed as the Bondi Vet star.. According to
the Daily Telegraph, sophisticated scammers used AI-generated photos, video calls and emotionally manipulative messages to catfish Lisa Nock, 44.. The impostor even went as far as faking video calls that apparently showed Brown filming in Africa and in TV studios as “proof”.. “I was vulnerable and wanted to believe we could be friends, we both love animals, I had lost my partner in a car crash a few years ago,” Nock, who is from Staffordshire,
told the masthead.. “I want Chris to know people operating as him are scamming people,” she said.. “I’m no fool, I just fell for the cleverness of AI.”
Bondi Vet Chris Brown, catfishing scam, WhatsApp impersonation, AI video calls, Instagram warning, online fraud