ITV’s Martin Lewis has hit out at criminals pretending to be him in a live rant on This Morning, with the money expert choking back tears as he spoke to a victim of the scam

Martin Lewis has furiously hit out at scammers live on-air after a guest on This Morning revealed that she lost her life savings when her husband believed a fake clip of Martin Lewis. Gill Casey, 77, appeared on This Morning today to open up about her husband Tim losing their life savings after spotting a fake video of Martin Lewis in 2022.

The video convinced Tim to invest in a company called Terra-Markets and resulted in the couple losing thousands of pounds. Tim died last December aged 85, with Gill convinced that it was caused by the stress of losing their savings to cryptocurrency scammers.

“He said that he’d seen a clip with Martin Lewis – poor Martin Lewis who always gets the blame for these things – and it was supposedly on this programme,” Gill said. “It was recommending bitcoin. You contacted a London number and they got back to you.”

Gill Casey and her husband lost their life savings after her husband believed a fake video of Martin LewisShe continued: “He persuaded him to put £500 – very small to start with – so I thought, ‘Fine, I don’t think that’s an issue particularly.’ And it went on from then. Once they get their hooks in, they keep on and on and on. This guy would phone three times a week.”

Gill revealed that they had given the scammers £90,000 before they asked for the profits to come out – however, the scammer kept asking for more money. “It knocked him for six – it stole his dignity, his self-confidence, his self-esteem,” he said.

Last summer, Tim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given four months to live. “I am absolutely convinced that all this stress and strain and upset, because stress does have a massive effect on your physically, I’m sure it accelerated that. I’m sure he just wanted to be out of it,” he said.

Choking back tears on This Morning, Martin said that he’s “devastated” over the scammers pretending to be him – and warned others not to believe similar videos.

“It’s just devastating,” he said. “I do not do adverts, I do not recommend make money products, I do not recommend crypto-trading or investment schemes.

“If you see those adverts on social media, they are criminals. The way they draw you in with £250 as a usual amount and they persuade you to put more money in.”

He added that there are “basically zero regulations” over scam adverts on social media. “Let me make it plain,” he fumed. “There are no protections. There are no regulations that are going to help you. You have to help yourself.

“If it seems too good to be true, do not do it. Do not believe pretty much any advert with any celebrity in on social media. Some will be legitimate but you are better off to assume that all of them are scams.

“If you want my information, this programme or go to my website. Do not trust social media adverts. Many of them are there to rip you off. I hate the word scams now – criminals. Vicious, organised crime.”

He continued: “When I hear at the start yet again, ‘we saw an advert with Martin Lewis in,’ I totally understand. The message hasn’t reached everybody yet. It is absolutely devastating. My career has been about trying to protect consumers, protect their pockets and fight for financial justice.”

Martin then became emotional as he said: “For these people, to use my name to rip vulnerable people off and non-vulnerable people off is absolutely disgraceful. They know what they’re doing. They have even used deepfake AIs of me talking about them as a deepfake AI to try and do a new advert about scams.”