Iron Man Is Taking Your Money In This Resurfaced Scam

Movie stars have all the luck. Everyone wants to be them, including cyber criminals. Robert Downey Jr., who is perhaps most well known as playing Iron Man in the recent Marvel movies is warning his fans that someone is impersonating him and asking for “contributions” to various “causes.”

This is not a new scam, but it seems it is making the rounds again. Watch out for any request that is supposedly from someone famous. Other famous names impersonated in this scam include musicians Brad Paisley and Elton John, actors Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Hugh Jackman, Ben Stiller, and Mark Ruffalo. However, it’s likely many others are out there too.

If you want to donate to any of the wonderful charitable causes out there, go directly to those websites and make your contributions there. Alternatively, send checks to their official addresses from their websites. Never send money to sites that randomly appear on your social media news feeds or on those of famous or well-known people. While it is not out of the question that stars may be trying to help their favorite cause, they won’t directly ask their fans.

If you see a plea for help in your social media feed from one of your contacts, be sure to investigate it before sharing it with yours. If you cannot find a link to someone in your network, perhaps reconsider whether you want to ask your contacts to donate.

Famous people typically don’t communicate with their fans individually to ask for contributions of any kind. In fact, Downey Jr. wrote on his Facebook page: "I will never ever communicate via private chat platforms, and I would never ask individual fans for money for any reason.” He continued, “Any communication from me will originate from my public, verified social media pages, and all fundraising is done via broad, public campaigns.”

Brad Paisley wrote a similar notice when his name was being used for this scam.

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September 11, 2107