Martin Lewis has shared his upset and anger as he issued a scam warning involving himself on Good Morning Britain. The money saving expert founder isn't a stranger to have his face used in adverts and successfully sued Facebook a number of years ago.
In April 2018, Martin issued High Court proceedings for defamation against Facebook after a year in which over 1,000 scam adverts abusing his name or image had appeared on the site. However, in 2019, Martin agreed to drop his lawsuit, and he and Facebook came together in a legal settlement.
Now though, Martin has warned of a ‘frightening’ new investment scam that uses a deepfake video of him. The 51-year-old urged authorities to "step up" and stop internet giants from publishing such content, saying people will lose money and "lives will be ruined".
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He first highlighted the sophisticated new con on Twitter, writing: "This is a scam by criminals trying to steal money. 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."
He then appeared on GMB on Friday (July 7) and spoke to Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard. "This is a deep fake they put together," Martin explained. "We're not quite sure of the exact technology.
"This is going around on Facebook at the moment. And this, as far as I know, is the first deep fake scam advert that we've seen. It's certainly the first with me and it's an absolutely terrifying development."
He said that the technology will only continue to get better and the "interview we're doing now" will most likely be "manipulated" into another scam in the future.
"That's the stage we're in. Now what you have to look at, and I am viscerally angry about this. People watching know I've been campaigning for proper regulation of scam adverts for years. It was 2017 when they proliferated, it was 2018 when I sued Facebook, it was 2019 when I got a 3 million settlement to charity from Facebook and t was also 2019 when we first heard of online harm and online safety bill that still has not been put into place."
Martin told ITV viewers: "And what I want everybody watching to remember, every time you see one of those adverts, one of the big tech firms is being paid to promote that advert. And these destroy vulnerable people and many non-vulnerable people's lives once you get scammed.
"The impact on your mental health and self-esteem is huge with many people." He added: "We are in a dangerous dystopian future and nothing is being done to protect people. It's an absolute sham." And as the interview ended, host Ben reminded fans at home he has "nothing to do with any investment scheme".
