By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2026-09-27 17:35:40 | Updated at 2026-09-27 19:01:06
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War-wounded UK military veterans hawking supposedly “handmade” patriotic items in emotional social media videos are nothing but AI-generated phonies selling cheap junk from China, according to a new report.
Some shameless hucksters used artificial intelligence to make videos that show disabled and disfigured vets, claiming to have suffered injuries like a lost eye and nose in battle — while they ask for support from sympathetic buyers, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.
“They’re despicable,” Army veteran Raymond Gilbert told the outlet after he was tricked into paying $200 on what he thought was a wooden flag figure made by a disabled fellow military serviceman.
But what arrived, he said, was a package with Chinese writing on the envelope, and inside, a printed image of a flag simply glued onto a piece of plywood.
“Using our disabled Army veterans is abhorrent — preying on our heartstrings to help these people out — is a despicable thing to do,” Gilbert, who served as a quality manager for the British Army in Afghanistan, added.
Gilbert, like others who were duped by the AI, found the videos of the advertisements on TikTok, according to the outlet.
The AI-videos depicted the veterans with sad captions about society turning their back on them after going to war.
“I will NEVER buy a wooden flag from a person that looks like you,” one post depicting a fake vet claimed he was told before advertising the cheap products.
Similar videos are found all over Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, with sellers advertising bags, cutting boards and door wreaths.
Will Guyatt, a technology expert, told the outlet that these videos are made in just minutes, and can be told to deliberately make it overly emotional with one prompt.
Currently, consumers are stuck relying on e-commerce platforms and social media sites to proactively take down the fake ads, but once it’s taken down, the gutless culprits will oftentimes just create a new account and repost the AI advertisements.
“In many respects, we’re fighting a bit of a losing battle,” Daniel Fletcher, a British attorney, said about the AI-slop takeover.
