Financial guru Martin Lewis has issued an urgent warning on social media of people using his name and likeness to run scams.
Lewis has become a widely trusted and highly regarded figure in household finance in the UK, carefully researching the economy and following government policy to provide people with helpful day to day tips on all manner of financial matters and government bills affecting ordinary people, from tax and claiming on government schemes to pensions and student finance.
But sadly Lewis has now warned that the very trust and good image that he has built up to help people is now being exploited by criminals to try and scam people out of their money, falsely using his name and image to lend their scams credibility.
Lewis explained that these scams might use his name or images of him they’ve sourced online to give the appearance of credibility.
In a particularly disturbing development, he also warned that some scammers are even using generative AI to generate videos of him to give the appearance that he is giving ‘financial advice’ which is actually just a scam.
Lewis shared tips on how to spot scammers impersonating him (Karwai Tang/WireImage)
Fortunately, Lewis has now issued a warning as well as some helpful tips that people can use to spot criminals who are impersonating him for their own gain.
In a post shared to his social media page, he wrote: “WARNING! There’s a huge rash of scam ads using me across socials right now trying to latch onto you to steal your money. Some are images, some fake AI vids.”
He went on to share ‘three key rules to protect yourself’, advising others to ‘pls share’ to help spread the word.
In the first of these, he wrote: “Investment ads with me in are criminal scams. AI Quantum Investing, Bitcoin Trader and the like: all scams.”
Lewis added: “Anything claiming ‘the establishment doesn’t want you to know’ is a scam too.”
In the second tip, he said: “I don’t do adverts. So if it’s an ad with me in, it isn’t me.”
Lewis said that some scammers might use AI to impersonate him (David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Lewis also advised to exercise extreme caution, adding: “If other well known people are in it, always start from the premise that it is a scam unless you can prove it isn’t. Never the other way round.”
Finally, he advised people that in order to know that a post purporting to be him is indeed him then check that it has come from one of his verified accounts and not an imposter.
“I only post from my verified accounts,” he wrote. “Check for the verified badge and the follower count.
“Without trying to sound like a prat, all my accounts have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. So if it doesn’t have that, its a fake.”
And if that wasn’t enough to hammer the point home, Lewis has even changed the profile picture on his X profile, which we checked is the verified one with 3.2 million followers.
The picture now features a portrait of the financial journalist with the words ‘I DON’T DO ADS’ written on his forehead in big block capitals.
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