Beware Of Crypto Scammers Using Advert Featuring Martin Lewis

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Martin Lewis is without doubt the most recognisable money saving guru in the UK, but he now holds the dubious title as the ‘most scammed face’ as well.

The Money Saving Expert (MSE) founder told his followers on X that a tidal wave of scam advertisements across this platform and others, such as Facebook, has led to the dodgy accolade.

Several of the crypto scam victims that I’ve spoken to have said that they started investing in a fraudulent platform after seeing an advert featuring Mr Lewis’ face, specifically on Facebook.

Even when they’d discovered that they’d been scammed, they still believed that the ad was genuine until it was pointed out that this was a method used by scammers to convince people that an investment is legitimate.

Scammers use celebrity images to lure in victims

Several well-known faces are frequently used in crypto scams in addition to Mr Lewis. Other commonly used people are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and, slightly incongruously, Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame.

The scammers create an advert that appears to show a celebrity endorsing a new crypto investment by suggesting that they’ve invested in it and seen exceptional returns.

In the context of crypto scams, clicking the advert will take the victim to either a fake crypto trading or mining platform, or a DApp which claim to offer an easy route to quick profits with cryptocurrency.

In all cases ‘investors’ will be promised unrealistically high weekly returns on their cash and will be induced to invest larger amounts of cash with the promise of even higher returns.

Fake platforms known as pig butchering scams

However, these fake platforms and DApps operate as what are known as pig butchering scams whereby the victims are ‘fattened up’ before being bled dry, ie have all their cash stolen.

Spurious WhatsApp groups will usually run alongside the fake platforms. These will be populated by people and bots making statements about how successful their investment has been while encouraging victims to put in more cash.

Victims are often assigned an account manager who will brief them on how their investment is going and even call them to offer reassurance that the funds are safe and all is going well.

Another way to keep victims engaged and confident is to allow them to withdraw small sums of cash at the start of the scam to ‘prove’ that everything is above board.

Scam victims find accounts blocked

However, if the victim tries to withdraw all their sums, including the supposed ‘profit’ they’ll find their account blocked and their funds inaccessible.

The scammers will give a wide range of reasons as to why this is the case, claiming that some form of fee is due in order to unblock the account.

This may come in the form of a ‘commission’, ‘tax’, ‘blockchain cost’ or some other entirely made-up charge designed to extract more cash from the victim.

Sometimes they’ll demand a percentage of the victim’s account balance but won’t allow the victim to use the funds in the account to pay this.

Of course, it’s all fictitious as the profits don’t exist and the funds are long gone.

If you’ve been the victim of a crypto scam, or are concerned about a trading platform, get in touch.

Final word

The use of Martin Lewis’ image clearly calls into question the screening process that Facebook, and other platforms, use when choosing to accept an advert or not.

The frequency with which I encounter crypto scam victims who’ve become embroiled in a fraudulent investment in this way clearly suggests that far more needs to be done to stamp out the fake adverts.

Martin Lewis has done what he can to make would-be investors aware of how the scammers are operating, but the social media behemoths need to take immediate action as well.

Related post: Crypto scam help and resources