Breakfast co-host Daniel Faitaua says a post circulating on social media claiming he’d been arrested is “an absolute scam”.
Faitaua said the post had been so widely circulated his mother had seen it. When he managed to speak to her recently, her first question was: “Are you ok son?”
“I’ve heard you’ve been arrested by the police,” she told him.
He hasn’t, and Faitaua said the post was “fake”. “This is not real.”
“And mum, stop listening to the church ladies, the aunties at church need to stop gossiping and sending this around.”
Understandably, Faitaua said his mum was really upset by the post.
The post had been reported to the TVNZ legal team.
“When we are alerted to posts containing false information, or false advertising involving TVNZ’s presenters, our lawyers will issue a takedown notice,” a TVNZ spokesperson said.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing a proliferation of this type of content online.”
Faitaua is not the first media personality to be targeted by fake ads and posts on social media – one woman spoke of losing over $300 after falling victim to a scam using Hilary Barry’s image.
In 2019 Hayley Holt told Breakfast viewers she was not leaving the show to set up a beauty product company.
