Karan Tacker recently became a victim of online scam as some people reached out to his fans, impersonating as his manager and offering a meeting with him in exchange for money. “Someone from the media sent me a screenshot of a person impersonating to be my manager. Then when I put it up on my Instagram, somebody I work with in Delhi also who does events, again sent me another screenshot. What they are doing is that they are saying they will connect people to Karan Tacker and asking for an advance for it. So, I got in touch with cyber crime who said that they blocked the number,” he tells us, sharing that as a preventive measure, he also put up a story and a post on his Instagram account on Monday to make his fans aware of the situation.
Karan Tacker shares that even after all these precautionary steps being taken, the scammers aren’t stopping at trying to dupe his fans. “Since I put the post up, I have got hundreds of messages saying that these people are now getting in touch through other platforms like Telegram since they have been blocked on WhatsApp. I am just trying to spread the word so that nobody gets scammed of their money,” he informs.
The scammers are also being diligent about their process as now they are first ensuring if the person they are contacting, knows the actor personally or not. “If they say yes, then they stop messaging,” he shares, adding that fortunately, no one has messaged him about falling prey to the scam. “But it’s sad if people are actually falling for it, because today there is more than enough information out there on every actor, and who represents them to get in touch correctly. People should ideally not fall prey to it, but human beings are also innocent. Everyone is allowed to make their own share of mistakes. My responsibility as an actor is that I should just do my job properly, so that it doesn’t get worse,” he says.
In the age of Artificial Intelligence, Karan is also scared of scammers taking it too far through deepfakes or morphed content. “Anything is possible and maybe if they start doing that, falsely impersonating me, it’s a big credibility issue. But that’s exactly what I am trying to prevent from my end. My primary concern right now is that no one should get scammed,” he says.