Martin Lewis issued a stark warning to fans over “criminals” before taking a few weeks away from social media.
The 51-year-old Money Saving Expert founder, who is well-known for his financial advice, has admitted he is taking a break from the internet to “recharge”.
Before signing off, Martin urged his followers to keep an eye out for scammers using his image to get money.
“Bye for now. I’m signing off for a few weeks to take a break, from social media and work, for a battery recharge,” he told his 2.3 million followers.
The This Morning star continued: “I’ll be leaving all the MoneySaving, any interest rate or price cap change news in the brilliantly capable hands of the @MoneySavingExp team – while I try and stay radio silent.”
He added: “Meantime pls be wary of criminals who in the past ramped up scam-ads with me in when I’m not posting. And if you spot them, do report them to the platform.”
The announcement about his departure means fans will be primed to spot a fake if someone does purport to be him while he’s away.
Fans keen on his financial advice wished him well, assuring him that his break was “well-deserved”.
Earlier this month, a “terrifying” deepfake scam was reported across the media, as scammers urged the public to invest in “Quantum AI”, which they described as “Elon Musk’s latest project”.
They used artificial intelligence to fake both the voice and the image of Martin, tricking some into believing the endorsement was really from him.
The Moneysavingexpert.com website described the “computer-generated impersonation” as “terrifyingly convincing”, especially as it uses a caption format that looks exactly like his appearances on This Morning.
It also purports to be linked to Tesla, but the site made it clear in no uncertain terms: “Martin is warning anyone that sees the video that it is an attempt by criminals to steal your money.”
Martin himself also tweeted about the situation, calling on the government to “step up to stop big tech publishing such dangerous fakes”.
He added: “People’ll lose money and it’ll ruin lives.”
A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company had clarified in a statement to the site: “We don’t allow this kind of advert on our platforms and the original video was proactively removed by our teams.
“We also removed a number of copycat adverts using the same imagery.”
Martin has been campaigning for the government to include scam ads in the Online Safety Bill, although it has not yet become law.
Meanwhile, a government spokesperson insisted: “Deepfake scams, which are fraudulent, will be caught by the Online Safety Bill’s illegal content duties. Platforms will have to take preventative measures to prevent fraudulent content appearing on their platforms and swiftly remove if it does.”
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