‘Am I losing this battle? Yes’: Martin Lewis on the online scams that steal his identity – and others’ life savings
Trusted by millions, the finance expert has seen his name and face used to mis-sell a string of fake investments. And yet, he says, it would be ‘very simple’ for the government to
By The Guardian
Martin Lewis, the finance expert trusted by millions, says he is losing the battle against online scams that steal his identity and drain other people’s life savings. This month, an elderly woman with a disability contacted Lewis after being scammed by a fake investment scheme that falsely claimed to be endorsed by him, resulting in the loss of her entire life savings.
Lewis described the incident as “very simple” for the government to stop, yet he said the constant deluge of fraud from scammers left him with tears running down his face, feeling a mixture of frustration, anger and sadness. Lewis never advertises anything, and his social media profile picture even states “I don’t do ads” on his forehead, but fraudsters still use deepfake videos and fake news articles featuring him to mis-sell investments.
MoneySavingExpert (MSE), the company Lewis founded in 2003 and sold in 2012 for up to £87m, now has a full-time employee dedicated to handling these scam cases, having received more than 300 reports in just one week. Fraudsters have also created fraudulent clone pages of the MSE news site and used deepfakes of Lewis alongside figures such as Sir Keir Starmer to make scams appear legitimate.
Lewis, who is now MSE’s executive chair, has previously sued Facebook for defamation after the platform facilitated thousands of scam adverts using his name or image, a case that settled in 2019 with Facebook donating to charity. Despite his long campaign against fraud, Lewis says the scale of harm is great enough that he feels the government must take stronger action to stop these scams.