An online beauty company is advertising on social media claiming their products are backed by a Wellington dermatologist - who does not exist.
The ad, created by a brand called Recuvia, begins with a clip of a female doctor typing at a desk.
A voiceover, speaking with a female, Kiwi accent, plays over the footage.
“I am a Wellington-based dermatologist and can confidently say lymphatic buildup is why your stubborn double chin and puffy face don’t fade, no matter how many fitness classes you do,” the ad says.
Clips of a soft-bristled facial sculpting brush appear on screen.
“This brush is the answer and it’s never been this cheap.”
But a spokeswoman from the NZ Dermatology and Skin Cancer Centre told the Herald she knows every dermatologist in the capital - none of which are the woman in the video.
The woman in question is actually a US dermatologist who had no idea her footage had been stolen for this ad.
The ad contained a clip of board-certified dermatologist Dr Abigail Waldman, who is popular on social media, with 436,000 followers on Instagram.
Waldman said she was not aware of the ad until it was brought to her attention by the Herald.
“It’s frustrating to have my video and name used without my permission to promote services that I don’t promote,” she said.
“This has happened to me before for other companies.”
The clip of Waldman appeared to be taken from a longer social media video she posted on her official account on December 14.
The original video had a block of text in the middle of the frame, but the clip which was used in the ad had removed this text.
Waldman confirmed she would be contacting Recuvia to ask them to take the video down.
She also planned to contact Meta, the platform which owns Instagram, where the ad was posted.
NZ Dermatology and Skin Cancer Centre nurse manager Ashleigh Hobbs told the Herald she had seen the ad on social media and had been sent it by a friend who believed the endorsement claim.
She said she knew immediately that the ad was lying because she follows Waldman on social media and knew who she was.
“The voice was obviously a Kiwi voice, but I thought ‘hang on, that’s not any of the Wellington female dermatologists because there’s only a couple’... so I thought ‘oh, it’s AI.’”
Hobbs said lymphatic drainage is “100% worth doing” but she did not know much about the specific product in the ad.
Across her 11 years in dermatology, she said she had never seen an ad make such blatant claims.
Hobbs hoped if Wellingtonians saw ads with claims like these, they would speak to local clinics to check facts and get a second opinion.
The ad was “pretty innocent at the moment” but false claims could become “quite dangerous” if the products advertised were electrical devices that could cause harm.
Recuvia’s website advertised two products for sale: a $55 facial sculpting brush and a $67 eye cream that comes with an electronic face massager.
Their ad also claimed Recuvia was a “small New Zealand business” and that “thousands of New Zealand women now trust us to smooth fine lines.” No company under the name Recuvia is listed on the New Zealand Companies Register.
The Herald contacted Recuvia for comment but did not receive a response.
Artificial intelligence expert Olivia Erdélyi said it was becoming more common to see real people’s likeness being used alongside false information online.
“Synthetic media”, also known as deepfakes, were more “pervasive” now and had become a “major problem”.
“Overall, you can’t trust anything you see anywhere anymore,” she said.
To help spot deepfakes, Erdélyi recommended cross-referencing information found on social media with credible sources, such as subject experts or news outlets.
“Think before you click,” she said.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a self-regulatory body covering social media ads that target New Zealanders, said complaints relating to therapeutic products or services would be considered under the Advertising Standards Code and Therapeutic and Health Advertising Code.
It cannot fine advertisers or ban ads, but it runs a complaints process which it said 97-99% of advertisers comply with.
The current Therapeutic and Health Advertising Code states if a healthcare professional endorses a product in an ad, it should comply with the law, be “authenticated, genuine, current” and “acknowledge any valuable considerations” about the product.
This code will be replaced by a new one in April, which clamps down firmly on endorsements, stating: “advertisements must not claim or imply endorsement of the product, device or service from Healthcare Professionals.”
“If an ad was found to be in breach of the Code, the ASA would request the advertiser and the media remove or amend the ad,” ASA chief executive Hilary Souter said.
Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.