NORTH CAROLINA — A popular YouTuber says someone used an artificial intelligence tool to pretend to be him as a way to trick businesses out of tens of thousands of dollars in electric bikes.
Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray explains how he and Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke helped catch the suspect.
Seth Alvo is a mountain biker and a content creator with about 3 million subscribers on YouTube.
“I like the freedom that bicycles give you,” Alvo said. “I like feeling like a kid. When you’re 10 years old and you just have the wind in your hair and you are flying down the trail or down the road? I never got sick of it.”
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Alvo told Channel 2 Action News and sister station WSOC’s Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke in Charlotte, North Carolina, that someone imitated his email account, writing style and more to pretend to be him in a scam.
The popular content creator also said he believes it was done with the help of AI.
Alvo said there’s plenty of material of him online to draw from. Alvo told Gray and Stoogenke that the imposter mimicked him, then emailed bike companies in his name.
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“Hey, I’d really like to take a look at this bike,” Alvo described the messages as saying. “Can you mail it to me so I can review it?”
Alvo said the imposter was able to land about $50,000 in e-bikes.
“Presumably, he figured he could get these and unload them and make a bunch of money,” the YouTuber said.
But then, some of the businesses ended up getting in touch with the real Alvo and his communications manager, Daniel Sapp.
Sapp told Stoogenke and Gray that he did some detective work, asking the companies to play along with the scammer, then send Sapp some of the email exchanges.
“We were able to find out where they were delivering the bikes. We had tracking numbers and everything,” Alvo told Channel 2 Action News.
Eventually, the investigation led them to a home in Greensboro and the police got involved.
Police charged Jeffrey Holden with multiple counts of obtaining property by false pretenses.
Alvo said about a dozen businesses were targeted during Holden’s alleged crimes, but it’s not all a loss.
“All the bikes will be going back to the companies after the investigation is over, which is kind of great because the companies, they lost time, they lost shipping fees, but at least they’re going to get their merchandise back,” Alvo said.
Action 9 and Channel 2 Action News emailed the suspect’s lawyer to get the defendant’s side of the story and are waiting for a response.
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