Scammer Uses AI Video Of Jelly Roll To Steal From Ohio Man On Disability

For those that need to hear this… alarm bells should go off if Jelly Roll reaches out to you asking for money.

We’re really entering into some scary territory when it comes to online scams. Now, with the addition of artificial intelligence into the mix, even the most skeptical people can be bamboozled. A man in Ohio by the name of Ronnie Flint recently fell victim to an online scam that used A.I. videos of Jelly Roll to convince him that he was winning $50,000 in cash and a new car.

Wouldn’t that be nice, eh?

But that’s the thing… if it seems too good to be true, it almost always is. Flint was told that he just had to cover the shipping costs for his prizes, and he was hesitant to do so. Then, he was sent multiple videos – made with artificial intelligence – that made it appear that the rapper-turned-country-music-star was actually talking to him. One video even had the A.I. Jelly Roll call Ronnie Flint by his name.

As the scam victim told 2News:

“I really thought it was Jelly Roll. When they sent the second video where he actually said my full name, that got me. I was like, ‘Wow, it really is Jelly Roll. He said my name.'”

Once Flint saw the video that featured Jelly Roll calling him by his name, he was convinced that the “Need A Favor” singer had actually reached out to him, and wanted to give him prizes. The only issue? Flint is on fixed income, and didn’t have much money to send over. But he still gathered up and sent $70 of Apple gift cards to who he thought was Jelly Roll:

“I even told him that I’m on disability. You know, this is all the money that I have for the rest of the month.”

Fortunately, that was the only money that the Ohio man sent over. A family member caught wind of Flint’s “connection” with Jelly Roll, and warned him that it was a scam. So Flint stopped sending money, and filed a police report immediately. We’ve seen plenty of worse instances of scamming, like when a woman sent over $60,000 to a scammer who was posing as Kevin Costner. $70 might not seem like a lot, but it’s still a loss of money that could have easily been avoided.

And I have to give props to Ronnie Flint for putting his story out there. He says that he spoke to 2News just in hopes of keeping another person out there from falling for the same, A.I. powered trick:

“That’s why I called you guys, because I want to put it out there because maybe somebody else already fell for it. I don’t want them to fall for it the way I did.”

The moral of the story here is to stay vigilant when it comes scammers in this day and age, and especially keep an eye out on behalf of some of our older loved ones. Scammers often single out lonely people, so if you know someone vulnerable in your life that also happens to be a fan of Jelly Roll, keep a close eye on them.

And remember that celebrities aren’t ever going to ask regular people for money, or offer up money with no strings attached. If you think this doesn’t happen often, you’d be wrong. Back in July of 2024, a story about a Massachusetts woman sending a fake Vince Gill over $350,000 went viral.

In an attempt to get ahead of some of these scams, the Federal Trade Commission put out this release back in 2018 warning people to stay alert when being asked to transfer money online:

“They’re asking fans to send money for all kinds of supposed reasons – like claiming a prize, donating to a charity, or giving help of some kind. Some celebs do raise money for legitimate causes. But you want to be sure the cause – and the person asking you to support it – are real.

Imposter scams come in many varieties, but they all work the same way: a scammer pretends to be someone you trust to convince you to send them money. And that’s exactly what these celebrity imposters are trying to do.”

You can view the very A.I. Jelly Roll videos (which appear to be grabbed from the country artist’s social media and modified) that were sent to Ronnie Flint in the video below:

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