A father of four from Somerset has lost £140,000 after falling victim to a deepfake video scam featuring Martin Lewis on Facebook. Wayne Luxon, 43, from Taunton, said he was conned by a fake AI-generated advert that led him to a clone website, where he invested money that eventually vanished.
Luxon initially invested £250 after seeing the advert in 2020, and when his investment appeared to double, he added further payments totalling £16,000. He later took out personal loans and raided his business account to pay over £100,000 in fake 'tax' demanded by the scammers. The platform showed a balance of over £800,000 before it went to zero.
“It sent me to a really dark place,” Luxon said. “I nearly lost myself, if it wasn’t for my wife being so strong.” Barclays refunded half of his initial investment but refused to return the fake tax payments. Luxon has now joined a group legal action against Meta, accusing the company of allowing scam adverts on Facebook and Instagram.
Another victim, Jakub Siwiak, 51, from Worksop, lost nearly £15,000 after clicking on a Facebook advert promising returns on foreign exchange. He said Facebook’s algorithms flooded his feed with such adverts. “I got scammed because of Facebook,” he said. “When something is suspect, they should take it off.”
The legal claim, brought by law firms Humphries Kerstetter and Richardson Hartley Law, aims to recoup billions lost to online scams. Martin Lewis has previously called for a clampdown on scam adverts using his likeness.
