Clifton van der Linden is an associate professor and the director of the Digital Society Lab at McMaster University. He is also the academic director of the master of public policy program.
When a sponsored ad for a company called EverGlow Toronto appeared in my Facebook feed recently, I couldn’t help but note the recent spate of purported local business owners posting emotional farewells as they suddenly closed up shop under devastating personal circumstances – invariably accompanied by a 24-hour fire sale of their remaining inventory at ostensibly deep discounts.
This particular post was supposedly written by a woman named Rose and opened with: “Norman has passed away.” It went on to describe Norman as Rose’s husband, love of her life, and founder of EverGlow.
The post continued: “I have not only lost my partner, but must now continue without him by my side. That is why I have decided to close EverGlow.” Readers were invited to honour Norman by participating in “a farewell sale of up to 80% off – for the next 24 hours only” as a way to “own a piece from our collection and carry a part of our story with you.”
By the time the post had reached my feed, more than 1,000 people had reacted with supportive emojis and it had been shared 58 times. Moreover, nearly 300 people had commented on the post, each conveying their condolences and many inquiring about the sale.
You were targeted in a scam. Is your bank liable for the losses?
Norman’s wares apparently consisted of coloured resin table lamps which mimicked the look of stained glass and largely took the shape of various animals. The website to which interested buyers were directed, everglowtoronto.com, featured a banner image of an elderly couple with one of the lamps, describing it as a “unique, handcrafted lamp to keep the warmth my husband Norman and I shared shining in your home forever. These are not just lights; they are the last expression of his artistry and the devotion we poured into every design. True handcrafted artwork that will never be produced again.”
The lamps were listed as retailing for $399.95, but were discounted to $79.95.
My suspicions about the authenticity of the post were initially occluded by my sympathy for the author, but several similar posts in recent weeks strained credulity. Certain telltale signs quickly sowed further doubt.
First, the post was dated 18 days before it appeared in my feed in early December, despite indicating that the liquidation sale would close within 24 hours of posting. (By Dec. 30, EverGlow was still having its “farewell sale” that “ends today.”)
This is a common tactic to pressure buyers into making split-second decisions, so I couldn’t be certain on that basis alone. But the signs piled up.
The picture of the elderly couple looked obviously generated by artificial intelligence (an AI detector agreed). The domain registry record for everglowtoronto.com indicated that it had only been registered 13 days prior to the post, and scamadviser.com gave the site a low trust score. Moreover, the site did not include a physical address or a phone number – simply a generic e-mail address and a contact form.
The final blow was a Google image search of one of the lamps featured on the site. Lo and behold, the “unique, handcrafted lamp” was widely available on sites including Amazon and Walmart for as little as $25.
I wrote to the email address provided on the website to inquire about the authenticity of its claims, but have yet to receive a response.
I term this phenomenon “grief-baiting” and it is a textbook example of deceptive marketing under Canadian consumer protection standards. The Competition Act explicitly prohibits misleading representations about how goods are made, where they come from, and what their ordinary selling price is. Shoppers may well receive a lamp if they order from EverGlow, but they are not receiving what they were told they were buying.
In practice, however, these schemes operate at a scale and speed that overwhelm the enforcement capacity of regulatory agencies, given the ease with which online storefronts can be spun up, shut down and relaunched. Effective oversight is thus only feasible at the level of the platforms that control distribution.
Platforms already deploy AI to optimize ad delivery and maximize revenue; they could just as readily use it to detect such fabricated backstories. But as long as platforms profit from every impression and click, there is little motivation to deploy AI as a shield for consumers rather than as a funnel for advertising revenue. Only regulation that makes carrying deceptive ads costlier than blocking them will realign platform incentives so as to protect compassion from being exploited.