Country music star Reba McEntire endorsed CBD and keto gummies.
Context
McEntire never endorsed any CBD products or keto gummies. Your image and likeness were used by scammers without your permission.
Reba McEntire never endorsed Natures One CBD Gummies or any other similar CBD or keto gummy items. However, in August 2022, scammers wanted Facebook users to believe it did.
We’ve reviewed a handful of paid ads that scammers had created on Facebook that falsely claimed the country music star was associated with the products. This was all part of an ongoing fake endorsement scam using celebrity likenesses that had already hit the web for several years.
Paid ads fueled the scam on Facebook
The Facebook ads were clickbait and falsely promised to reveal some kind of sad news about McEntire, as we previously reported. His image and likeness appeared in advertisements.
The ads spawned several scam articles that made it appear as if McEntire had put his stamp of approval on various CBD products and keto gummies like Natures One CBD Gummies. These articles were created with designs, graphics and logos intended to mislead users into believing they were visiting FoxNews.com and the websites of other news organizations. They even claimed the products could “reverse dementia.” All this was false and misleading.
This article was created by scammers to look like it came from FoxNews.com. Fox News actually had nothing to do with any of this.
Avoiding the obstacles of scammers
We noticed that the fake FoxNews.com endorsement article would close if we tried to open Google Chrome’s developer tools. Chrome’s developer tools are a set of features that allow advanced users to analyze website code. The fake article also banned the page’s source code from being viewed. This was a script that scammers inserted to try to prevent investigators from finding the origins of the story. However, their efforts did not work.
We refreshed the page and hit escape before it had a chance to fully load. This allowed us to see in the “Network” area of Chrome’s developer tools that the scammers were hosting their images on Amazon Web Services. We contacted Amazon Web Services to notify them of the activity. We have also sent this guide to the McEntire team.
One of the images in the scammers’ fake article showed a fake Fox News bottom-third graphic with a picture of McEntire on the set of Andy Cohen’s Bravo TV show, “Watch What Happens Live.” We archived the image as proof that it was hosted on Amazon Web Services.
This was one of several images that were hosted on the fake FoxNews.com article that scammers created on another website to look like it came from Fox News.
Missing: Customer Service Phone Number
In the fake article on the scam website that was designed to look like FoxNews.com, Natures One CBD Gummies links led to the website buy-naturesone.com. There, a terms and conditions link was displayed at the bottom of the page. In section 2.4 of the terms and conditions, there were two spaces between “Please contact customer service TOLL FREE” and “between the hours of 9am EST – 9pm EST on Monday on Saturday with any questions about your product, payment or return.”
The two spaces between “FREE” and “between the hours of” indicated that the phone number may have once been between the two spaces, but was omitted or removed. We couldn’t find a phone number on two more pages for the privacy policy and the wireless policy.
It’s unclear how Natures One CBD Gummies customers would be able to contact the company to cancel or modify orders if they fell for McEntire’s scam. The fake FoxNews.com article claimed that McEntire was offering “DISCOUNT Bottles + FREE Shipping”, which was not true. Purchasing a product from one of these CBD or keto gummy websites enrolls customers in a trial program that, about 30 days later, hits them with a large charge to their debit card or credit that can often be hundreds of dollars.
McEntire reacts
On August 3, McEntire commented on several scams using his name without his permission, including CBD and keto gummies. The observations appeared in a Twitter threadeither from her or from members of her management team:
Just a reminder to be aware of the scams out there. The only social media profiles I have are under the address @reba and have blue checkmarks next to my name. Any other profile is fake.
I or any member of my team will never send you messages asking for personal information, such as your bank account. I or any member of my team will never ask you to purchase any type of gift card to send to me. There is no way to buy a personal meeting with me.
If you are messaging any profile that asks for this, please do not interact with them. They are not officially associated with me or my organization. Also, be aware of targeted scam advertising that says I sell products like CBD [or keto] jelly beans They are also fake.
The only place you can buy any kind of official Reba product is through my website or you can never be too safe online. If it seems like a scam, trust your gut and report the profile.
We’ve seen fake endorsement scams for CBD products and keto gummies with many other celebrities. Some of these names include Rebel Wilson, Steve Harvey, Johnny Depp and Tiger Woods.
In short, no, McEntire, often known only by her first name, Reba, never endorsed Natures One CBD Gummies or any other similar CBD or keto products. Readers are advised to say away from anything related to this scam and share this news with family and friends on social media who may be easily swayed by the ruse.