An Abu Dhabi resident spoke of her shock after discovering that her picture was used for a clickbait online advert without her knowledge.
Gina Dillon appears with her former helper in the paid-for advertisement on a media site in the UAE with the headline ‘Filipina maid retires after becoming millionaire in three months’.
She said the woman she is pictured with, Juliana Bernal, did work for her, and has since retired from her position and returned to the Philippines.
She did retire but not as a millionaire, I'm sure. We were generous, but not that generous
But the family employed her for substantially longer than three months and although the family were generous, she is fairly sure she did not retire a millionaire.
To be classed as a millionaire in the Philippines, someone would need to have more than Dh76,380 in the bank.
“She had been with us for five years. After that picture was taken she was with us for another two,” said Ms Dillon, who is the administrator for several Facebook groups and has taken it all in her stride.
“She did retire but not as a millionaire, I’m sure. We were generous, but not that generous.
“I showed my husband this and he joked: ‘How much were you paying her?’”
Ms Dillon, who is from the US, said she shared a picture of the advert – which links to an unrelated news article – with Ms Bernal on Facebook, but has not heard back from her yet.
She said the discovery of the picture, which was flagged by a friend, was a surprise.
“As someone on my thread said, you see these people on this paid content and you always wonder, who are they?
“It’s me, that’s who,” Ms Dillon said.
She said she remembers the exact day the picture was taken in 2016, on the same day she had a photoshoot for The National for an article about how residents can cash in when selling their belongings.
“I remember, Juliana was standing there and she said something like 'oh mam you look so nice', or something like that,” Ms Dillon said.
“'It’s so great they’re doing this article.' And I said: 'I couldn’t do it without you, Juliana.' And then I snapped the picture.”
She then shared it online with a tribute to her former helper.
“I shared it along with the story about how much I relied on Juliana. She had been with me for five years.
"I didn’t speak about her salary. It was just a little tribute to her. She was the backbone of our family.
"And that’s all I did. I just wrote this tribute to her, and somebody grabbed it.”
Ms Dillon is uncertain of where she posted the image online but is taking a light-hearted approach to the incident.
“I don’t let things bother me that much. I am out there. And so, it’s not fair but I guess I will roll with it,” she said. “And I guess if you’re going to make up stuff about me, it’s a nice one isn’t it?”
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
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Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
