When even the UK’s most trusted ‘money man’ has to put out videos disavowing social media ad scams, you know you’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Following reports 10% of Meta’s ad revenue comes from such ads, an incensed Mark Ritson asks why marketers are not holding Meta to account.
There he is. The mighty Martin Lewis, Britain’s most trusted money man, sat in what appears to be his home office. He’s turned his attention away from ISA rates and toward crypto, explaining why Elon Musk’s new Quantum AI project is the “investment opportunity of a lifetime.”
The lighting is perfect. The voice uncanny. His blue sofa the exact shade you remember from a dozen ITV appearances. If you’re over fifty-five, male, and spend your days Googling “best pension drawdown rates,” this ad has been algorithmically selected just for you. Just click, enter your bank details, and watch the returns roll in.
Except, of course, the whole thing is fraudulent bollocks. Martin Lewis has nothing to do with it.
Musk isn’t involved.
There is no investment scheme.
The video is a deepfake, stitched together by criminals using AI to mimic faces and voices with terrifying accuracy.
And what makes this properly terrifying is that this scam ad doesn’t lurk on some desperate digital media fluttering at the margins of the dark web. It’s an Instagram ad. The content may be criminal, but the media context is entirely legitimate. Legitimacy that helps the dodgy content pass the sniff test and deliver its fraudulent ROI.
Meta, owner of Instagram, must surely be concerned about fraudulent advertising appearing across its network, right?
Right?
According to leaked internal company documents obtained by Reuters, the Martin Lewis fake crypto ad is part of a sprawling, systematically enabled fraud that accounts for roughly 10% of Meta’s annual advertising revenue. That’s approximately $16bn in 2024 alone, from fraudulent ads that should never have been created, served, or clicked on. That’s a revenue stream comparable to McDonald’s annual global profit.
Meta’s platforms serve users an estimated…
