'I was scammed out of £75k by Martin Lewis deepfake advert'

"It's rather hard for maine to person to beryllium successful the aforesaid country arsenic you", wealth redeeming adept Martin Lewis says arsenic Des Healey, a room fitter from Brighton, walked into the BBC Radio 5 Live studio.

Like galore different people, Des had fallen unfortunate to a scam advert connected Facebook which utilized a deepfake of Martin on with tech billionaire Elon Musk promoting a non-existent bitcoin concern scheme.

Facebook proprietor Meta, recently announced they would beryllium introducing facial designation exertion to effort and ace down connected scammers who fraudulently utilized celebrities successful adverts.

Martin says helium has the "weird accolade" of being the astir scammed face successful Britain.

"I've spent my full vocation trying to assistance consumers, and these criminals, thieves, organised transgression radical person perverted my reputation," helium accidental connected his BBC Sounds podcast.

Martin tells Des however hard it is to conscionable idiosyncratic who has been taken successful by the scam utilizing his image, knowing they "trusted what I was doing" to enactment the wealth successful - yet costing Des £76,000.

It was August 2023 and Des had been connected Facebook erstwhile helium spotted the fake advert for the concern scheme, falsely claimed to beryllium fronted by the duo.

Artificial quality (AI) had been utilized to manipulate Martin's existent dependable to marque it look similar helium was doing a TV interrogation from his house, endorsing an concern strategy by Musk.

"I person witnessed you a fewer times connected TV stating that you ne'er enactment your sanction to these things," Des tells Martin, "so wherefore connected that peculiar time it sold it to me, I bash not know... I truly don't".

As a self-employed tradesperson, Des says helium saw the advert arsenic an accidental to "earn a fewer other bob" earlier Christmas successful a abbreviated play of clip portion his ain concern wasn't busy.

After replying to the advert with his interaction details, Des was phoned wrong 10 minutes and enactment successful interaction with a antheral who claimed to person implicit 20 years' acquisition arsenic a fiscal adviser.

Calling himself Carl, helium acceptable up an relationship for Des with Revolut, an e-money steadfast which has 9 cardinal customers successful the UK, and took a £1,000 investment.

Des was told by Carl "profitable months" were coming up and they would "earn a hellhole of a batch more" if they invested his wealth "as soon arsenic we can".

Shortly aft the archetypal investment, it appeared that Des had the wealth returned to his Revolut account, though it is unclear if the surface Des was seeing was successful information that relationship oregon a fake page, controlled by the scammer.

Trusting Carl, Des past transferred £5,000 into the Revolut account, which was the entirety of his beingness savings.

"To get the £5,000 back, you had to put £10,000," Des explains, "I wasn't allowed to retreat thing until the time that helium tells maine I can".

The £5,000 Des transferred was past moved retired of the Revolut relationship by the scammer nether the guise that it was being invested.

Des yet ended up taking retired 4 loans with 4 abstracted providers totalling £70,000 successful bid to support investing.

It was past erstwhile his lad listened to 1 of the telephone calls with Carl and raised concerns aft proceeding euphony successful the background.

He recalls his lad asking: "What slope oregon telephone centre would beryllium playing a rap song?" earlier informing his dada to spell to the constabulary aft suspecting "this isn't right".

Reflecting connected however helium became unfortunate of a scam, Des says it were arsenic if a "spell was formed upon me".

Martin says Des is "brave and admirable" for speaking retired and telling his communicative arsenic "a informing flag" for others.

He adds that scammers are "psychologically adept astatine manipulating us, usage immense online and intelligence resources successful bid to bargain our money... falling for scams does not marque you a mug - makes you a victim, but it doesn't marque you a mug".

Offering his tips for avoiding becoming a unfortunate of a scam, Martin says beware of "urgency".

"The much urgent and the little radical you tin archer - the much secret, the much apt it is to beryllium a scam," helium says.

Another extremity is if you're cold-called by idiosyncratic from your slope oregon a institution you woody with, asking for information, "hang up politely" and telephone them back.

"I would preferably telephone backmost connected a antithetic phone, conscionable successful lawsuit they're keeping the dial fig on," Martin advises.

• If you person been affected by the issues raised successful this communicative assistance and enactment is disposable via BBC Action Line

He says "if you don't person different phone, you could hold 10 oregon 15 minutes oregon telephone a household subordinate first".

His adds that radical should "be precise careful" erstwhile being asked to click connected a nexus "or if you person a substance asking you to reply 'stop'.

"You person to beryllium alert that by sending stop, you've conscionable notified them that you're a existent mobile telephone fig and you could get much scams connected the back," helium says.

Since reporting the scam to the police, 2 of the banks Des took retired wealth with person cancelled his loans with them.

He inactive owes £20,000 positive involvement of astir £6,000 to 2 abstracted companies and is successful the process of speaking to the fiscal ombudsman astir the options disposable to him.

Having yet met Martin, and told his communicative of being scammed, Des says he's grateful to person had the accidental arsenic "Martin is simply a bully guy".

"[He] said aft the podcast that I person astir apt helped a batch of people... I was precise pleased I [spoke out]."

A spokesperson for Revolut said it was atrocious to perceive astir immoderate lawsuit wherever "customers are targeted by ruthless and highly blase criminals".

The connection added: "Revolut works hard and invests heavy to support our customers arsenic champion we tin done our fraud prevention technologies, analysing implicit fractional a cardinal transactions a month."