Martin Lewis appeared emotional on ITV's This Morning as he discussed deepfake scams, revealing how an elderly woman became a victim and lost everything. The Money Saving Expert star had tears in his eyes while speaking to presenters Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard, calling the situation 'a disgrace'.
Martin Lewis distraught over deepfake scam
Ben noted that Lewis appears in 43 percent of all scams, prompting the finance expert to share his frustration. 'I sued Facebook in 2019,' he stated. 'I settled for £3 million to go to set up a new anti-scam charity and a tool to report scam ads that I thought would work. It hasn't worked. I campaigned and led the campaign to get scam adverts in the Online Safety Act, which we got three years ago.'
Lewis emphasised that fraudulent advertisements cause 'enormous damage' as they are 'damaging people's mental health and self-esteem' alongside the financial consequences. He then read a post he had published on social media, which detailed an email from a 78-year-old disabled woman.
'I was, without any exaggeration, in tears on the back of this,' he stated. The woman wrote: 'I invested, Martin, with Quantum when you first announced it on TV.' Lewis explained it was a deepfake AI video of him on social media. She added: 'What an opportunity for me to buy my own flat. The manager there passed me through to a nice man who asked me for £350 more. By the way, this really took some tightening up to get there. He showed me it was growing. I did what he told me to do.'
Lewis continued: 'She then goes on to explain how she really wanted a flat and gave more and more money and now has nothing left to help her in the rest of her life with her disability and no flat because of it, because she trusted me. That was what brought me to tears.'
He added: 'I fundamentally wish I could tell you that that was a terrible, shocking one-off and not a regular, daily, daily occurrence.'
Government response
The discussion continued with fellow This Morning regulars Ashley James and Nick Ferrari. Nick informed viewers: 'The government's saying, we're taking action across government to tackle fraud, backing this with £79 million this year to protect consumers, disrupt criminals, and stop fraudsters targeting the public online.'
This Morning airs from 10am on ITV on weekdays.
