Des Healey, a kitchen fitter from Brighton, fell victim to a deepfake scam advert on Facebook which used TV presenter Martin Lewis and tech billionaire Elon Musk to promote a non-existent Bitcoin investment scheme. Martin Lewis has become the most misrepresented face in Britain, according to him, and after meeting Des, who lost £76,000, he described how difficult it was to encounter someone who had lost his money due to scammers using his image. Facebook announced it would introduce facial recognition technology to tackle fraudsters who use celebrities in adverts.
Des, a self-employed tradesman who wanted to make extra income before Christmas, responded to the fraudulent Facebook ad and was called within 10 minutes. A man named Carl introduced himself claiming to be a financial advisor, opened a Revolut account for Des, a digital banking service with nine million customers in the UK, and took £1,000 as an initial investment. After that, despite his concerns, £5,000 of his life savings was taken by the scammer.
Des took out four loans totalling £70,000 in order to keep investing as he was told by Carl that profitable months were coming up and they would earn a significant amount of money if they invested as soon as they could. Des had to keep investing to get his £5,000 back, but it seemed the screen he was seeing was a fraudulent page controlled by the scammer. Martin said that Des is brave and admirable for speaking out and telling his story as “a warning flag” for others.
Martin advised about being very alert when being asked to click on a link and to “be very careful” when receiving a text from an unknown number. He said people should “hang up politely” and call back on a different phone, ideally a family member’s phone, if they’re cold-called by somebody from their bank or any company they deal with, asking for personal details. If people are urged to act immediately, it is likely to be a scam. Since reporting the scam to the police, two of the banks Des borrowed money from have cancelled his loans with them, but he still owes £20,000 plus a £6,000 interest to two separate firms and is seeking advice from the financial ombudsman
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