GoKawiilScammers are selling seeds for plants that don’t exist with spectacular, AI-generated images of technicolor leaves that bloom in the shape of birds, butterflies, and cat heads. This type of fake seeds scam predates widespread access to AI image generators, but the ability to easily create these images has made the scam more widespread, especially on big online retailers like eBay, Amazon, and Etsy, which are unable to keep up with the flood of scam plant sellers on their platforms.
The type of images scammers use to sell seeds online range from slightly exaggerated aesthetics to full-blown, obviously fake AI slop that looks like it was rejected from Avatar’s alien jungle.
One common scam seed is for a sunflower variety called ‘teddy bear,’ named after its poofy, fluffy appearance. You can see what it looks like in reality on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website . Spectacular, yes, but that is nothing compared to the AI-generated images of gigantic, purple teddy bear sunflowers on Etsy:
This Etsy store, which sells a wide selection of seeds for real plants with AI-generated images, and which also randomly sells AI-generated Trump T-shirts , has mixed reviews, with some buyers saying the seeds look healthy, and others complaining they never got their shipment, or that they received seeds for the wrong plant.
At least dozens of sellers on eBay and Amazon also offer seeds for plants they promote with clearly AI-generated images. Searching the stores for “sunflower teddy bear seeds” returns many such images, including identical images to those I found on Etsy. For some reason, AI-generated images for teddy bear sunflowers often feature a random old lady next to the gigantic flowers (grandma for scale?).
On the more obviously fake end of the spectrum is basically anything sold on Etsy by Trenzay . For example, this hosta plant that looks like a bunch of screaming demon shrimps:
This plant that looks like a butterfly:
Or this very patriotic, red, white, and blue plant:
“Rose seeds” and “rainbow seeds” are two of the more common types of fake plants promoted with AI-generated images, probably because the rainbow-colored leaves and bushes are eye-catching. To me, they seem obviously, laughably AI-generated, but their popularity and public facing data from some online retailers indicate people have bought them thousands of times. This is reflected not only in user reviews who claim the sellers are scammers, but also by the number of units sold, which is sometimes shown on eBay.
🌸 Do you know anything else about these seed scams? I would love to hear from you. You can message me securely on Signal at @emanuel.404. Otherwise, send me an email at [email protected].
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