Martin Lewis has warned of a ‘frightening’ scam where a video shows him apparently telling UK investors to put their money into a scheme. But the Money Saving Expert founder said it was a ‘deep fake’ video scam and urged the government to take action to protect people.
In the convincing video Martin is seen saying that it is one of the best investment opportunities he has seen for UK investors. But he took to Twitter to highlight the scam. He said: “Warning - this is a scam by criminals trying to steal money. Pls share.
“This is frightening, it’s the first deep fake video scam I’ve seen with me in it. Govt & regulators must step up to stop big tech publishing such dangerous fakes. People’ll lose money and it’ll ruin lives.”
Deepfakes use a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning to make images of fake event - in this case a convincing video including a voice which sounds just like Martin’s. Anthony Browne MP replied: “We knew this scary development was coming, and I am having urgent talks with industry about how we block it. AI makes it easier for scammers to identify victims and steal from them, but it is also a powerful weapon to stop the criminals.”
Veronica Pullen who said she was a lip reader added: “As a lip reader, I can tell your mouth movements are slightly off. But it’s very convincing if you see this video in isolation, don’t think too deeply when you watch it or don’t know the patterns of how your mouth moves (which sounds realllllyyy creepy haha!)”
Twitter users were concerned at the development. Aaron Short added: “Being in the early years of deepfakes I dread to think where this is going in years to come.” Hayley said: “This is so worrying, it’s going to get to a point where we can’t believe anything we see online.”
It’s not the first scam even this week Martin highlighted - he was targeted by a scam automated system which claimed it was from the HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) - and decided to play along. He was told that he should press the number 1 - which he did. Martin told his twitter followers: “Just got a scam automated call from ‘HMRC’ on my mobile. Electronic voice with US accent telling me I hadn’t replied to a letter and legal action was being started... “press 1 to urgently speak to an agent”.
“Decided to play along and see what happened. Pressed 1, man answered saying HMRC, I said “Hello can you tell me which HMRC office you are part of please. that was enough. He rang off. No fun at all!”
His followers were concerned that by actually pressing 1 he had agreed to a premium rate call and would be charged. Anonomouse asked: “Is there not a thing where you press the number and it redirects you, but it’s a premium number that actually charges you??”
After a number of people asked the same question Martin pledged to investigate and contacted Ofcom. He explained that the key thing not to do was call back.
Mr Lewis said: “If you are called by a scammer and asked to press a button (eg press 1 to...) it is impossible for you to be charged a premium rate call. Many said they were worried about this, having had similar calls to the HMRC scam one I tweeted about yesterday. So I wanted to clear it up (and I’ve double checked with Ofgem).
“However if you call them, or if you click to call back after they’ve left a voicemail or from a missed call, you may be charged a premium rate. So the best thing if you’re in any doubt is exercise caution and not engage.
“Frankly anyone calling you out of the blue to tell you you must take urgent or secret financial (or tech) action is almost certainly a criminal scammer (common ones are from HMRC, Microsoft, delivery firms, NHS). Be very wary.”
