Deepfake adverts: how to check a celebrity investment ad before you trust it

What is circulating

“Pensioner loses £80,000 after deepfake Martin Lewis investment scam” (The Worcester News, 22 September 2026). “Victim loses £250k after scammers use AI video of ‘well-known’ celebrity” (BBC, 7 September 2026). Two headlines just over a fortnight apart, one pattern: an AI-made video in which a trusted face appears to recommend an investment, and a loss that happens later, away from the advert.

When the face is Martin Lewis, MoneySavingExpert is blunt about it: Martin Lewis and MSE never endorse products through adverts, so any ad with him in it that does not link back to MSE is a fake, and so are the quotes. Other faces the Advertising Standards Authority saw misused in 2025 scam adverts included Keir Starmer, Naga Munchetty, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage and Dr Hilary Jones. A famous face in an advert tells you nothing about who made it.

It is not always a video. In July 2026 the Guardian reported fraudsters cloning trusted news sites, including fake Guardian articles under real reporters’ bylines falsely claiming Jim Ratcliffe had stormed out of a BBC interview, to steer readers to scam investment platforms. Ofcom’s figures give the scale: 51% of adults say they have encountered potentially fraudulent adverts online, 36% see them frequently, and an estimated £200 million or more a year is lost to them in the UK.

What happens after you click

In the Northern Ireland case the victim saw what appeared to be an AI-generated video of a well-known financial-sector personality promoting an investment (PSNI did not name the person). After a small first payment the fraudsters moved to WhatsApp, had the victim open several accounts, obtained remote access to their computer and encouraged them to borrow to keep investing. The loss reached £250,000.

The Worcester News case has the same shape. A 72-year-old woman from Chipping Campden responded to a deepfake Martin Lewis video on Facebook and was coached over a screen-share to move money through Revolut into crypto and payment accounts: £30,000 of savings and £50,000 in personal loans. One caution: those details come from a fraud-recovery law firm quoted by the paper, not from the police or a bank.

UK Finance’s Annual Fraud Report 2026 puts investment scam losses at £221.5 million in 2025, up 40%, across 14,893 cases. Of the ten Scam Ad Alerts the ASA issued for deepfake-video adverts in 2025, all ten were for crypto scams.

How to spot a deepfake advert

Start with the message, not the pixels. The ASA’s advice is to pause and ask whether what the person is saying seems out of character. PSNI’s, after the £250,000 case, was that an online advert or apparent celebrity endorsement should never be regarded as proof that an investment is genuine. A famous face urging you to put money into a scheme is the tell.

Then the pixels. The ASA says you may notice unnatural facial movements, jerkiness or unusual-sounding speech. It also expects AI video and images to get harder to tell from the real thing, so a clean-looking clip is no reassurance.

Then the link. MSE’s test is the link itself: an ad with Martin Lewis that does not go back to MSE is fake. Apply the same idea to every advert and every “article”: rather than clicking through, open a new tab and go to the person’s or the outlet’s own website yourself. A trading platform with a familiar face on its landing page is still an unknown firm.

How to check a firm before you invest

Whoever put the firm in front of you, check it before any money moves. The FCA’s Firm Checker, launched in December 2025, lets you check whether a firm is authorised for the service it is offering. The FCA also says to check the firm’s contact details match those shown on Firm Checker, and to call its consumer helpline on 0800 111 6768 if you cannot find the firm.

The second check is the FCA Warning List, which showed 18,702 entries on 23 September 2026. The FCA is careful to say it is not exhaustive: a firm that is not on it may still be unauthorised or a scam, so absence proves nothing. Dealing with an unauthorised firm means no Financial Ombudsman and no Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection if it goes wrong. If you cannot find the firm on Firm Checker, do not invest.

How to report a scam advert

Start with the platform’s own report option on the advert itself. Then use the Advertising Standards Authority’s online scam-ad form, which covers scam ads in paid-for space: social media adverts, paid search and adverts on newspaper websites. You get no personal reply; the ASA uses reports as intelligence and shares them with platforms and ad networks to get ads removed, and its own examples include false celebrity endorsements and fake celebrity news. In 2025 it received 2,589 reports, sent 169 Scam Ad Alerts, and platforms removed the alerted ads within 48 hours 96% of the time, up from 70% in 2024.

If the ad uses Martin Lewis or MoneySavingExpert, also email a screenshot and any links to scamadverts@moneysavingexpert.com. Suspicious websites can be reported to the National Cyber Security Centre.

If you have paid, that is a crime report, not an ad report. Tell your bank first, on the number on your card. Then, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, report to Report Fraud, which replaced Action Fraud on 4 December 2025, at reportfraud.police.uk or on 0300 123 2040. If you live in Scotland, or the crime happened there, contact Police Scotland on 101. Our what to do if you’ve been scammed guide has the routes for each nation and the reimbursement rules.

If you have already invested

Stop paying in, however persuasive the reason. Contact your bank straight away on the number on your card, then make the crime report above. Keep the advert, the messages and the platform’s web address; screenshots are evidence. Do not let anyone take remote control of your computer again.

Then be ready for a second approach. The FCA warns that “recovery room” fraudsters target people who have already been scammed, offering to get the money back for an upfront fee. They usually write from webmail addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Yandex, and the FCA, government, law enforcement and law firms never use webmail to contact consumers. The FCA’s helpline for investment and recovery-room scams is 0800 111 6768.

Tell someone. In both September cases the money moved after the conversation had left the advert: to WhatsApp in one, to a screen-share in the other. If you help an older relative with money, agree the household rule now: nothing is invested on the strength of an advert, a video or a phone call, and any firm gets checked on Firm Checker first. Our family safe word guide covers the calls that pretend to be family; The Family File is gaining a ‘Scams and our safe word’ page, so the rule is written down.

What the law is doing

The Online Safety Act 2023 already places illegal-content duties on platforms, and those duties cover fraud offences. The codes for paid-for adverts are still in draft. On 10 July 2026 Ofcom published draft Fraudulent Advertising Codes of Practice: nearly 40 measures for the largest platforms and search services (Category 1 and 2A), covering paid-for adverts only, not user posts or unpaid search results. The draft would make platforms check that anyone advertising banking or investment services is legally allowed to, for example by being FCA-authorised, verify advertiser accounts, test their AI ad-making tools against misuse, and give trusted bodies a fast channel to flag scam ads.

The timing matters, because some headlines read as if the rules were already in force. The consultation closes on 2 October 2026. Ofcom will set out its final decisions in 2027, and the codes take effect only once Parliament approves them. After that, fines can reach £18 million or 10% of global revenue. Until then, the checks above are yours to do.