A bogus, sponsored ad on Facebook (FB) using Sen. Raffy Tulfo’s name to bait people into an online trading application scam has reappeared and continues to deceive netizens.
Its caption read: “Shock! The last thing anyone wanted to see about Raffy Tulfo happened this morning!”
The ad first appeared almost three months ago and was immediately denied by Sen. Tulfo. “Hindi nag-eendorso ng anumang cryptocurrency at trading platform si Sen. Tulfo, (Sen. Tulfo does not promote any cryptocurrency and trading platform), the senator’s official FB platform Raffy Tulfo in Action said on March 26.
The bogus post that carries a link to an impostor of online news site Inquirer.net, resurfaced early this month and VERA Files Viber misinformation tipline received a request to verify the ad.
Supposedly, Tulfo told talk show host Boy Abunda to invest in a trading platform called Quantum Ai.
“Inquirer.net did not post this story which is clearly intended to misinform and mislead the public,” Abel Ulanday, Inquirer.net Editor-in-Chief, told VERA Files Fact Check in response to another impostor site with an almost exact layout.
To hook people into reading, the fake Inquirer.net article claimed in its headline that the Bank of the Philippines sued Tulfo for remarks made on a TV program.
The article carried a screenshot of Abunda’s interview with then-senatorial candidate Tulfo on YouTube channel The Boy Abunda Talk, dated March 28, 2022.
FB page Nfgjdthgfxjyjh launched the bogus ad on FB, Instagram, FB Audience Network and Messenger from June 3 to 4, according to Meta’s Ad Library.
Nfgjdthgfxjyjh, which claims to be a clothing page, was created on May 31, 2024, according to its FB Page Transparency details.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
